Set price for adoptions

THE EDITOR: In issues involving children, whether in divorce cases or adoption or even criminal punishment, the best outcome for the child is supposed to be the determining factor at all times.

In this regard, it is not at all clear that the case of the illegal adoption of a Venezuelan child meets this criterion. Rather, it seems that the law as now constituted works against the interests of needy children. The Children’s Authority wasted no time pointing out that it was the sole authority for adoptions, there was an excess of demand and there was no financial consideration for getting a child for adoption.

But it is these three factors which explain why there is more demand for children than supply and yet why there are still children who are in deprived or abusive situations. Since the State through the Children’s Authority holds a monopoly on the supply of children and supplies those children for free, the laws of economics dictate that there must be a shortage.

But suppose a price was set for adoptions? The immediate advantage of this approach is that it ensures that only financially stable couples would apply to adopt a child. Since most of the money would also go to the mother, this would also provide an incentive for more women to give up their children for adoption. Thus, pricing also provides an automatic test of who is a fit parent, since obviously any mother who is willing to give up her child for money very likely has extremely good reasons for doing so. Moreover, one of the causes of shortages is that most couples want newborn babies. But a market for adopted children will help create a demand for older children, perhaps even up to seven years of age. The present state-run system, however, ensures that almost every child over the age of three ends up in children’s homes or in the orphanage.

Critics will raise three objections, all specious, to this proposal. The first is that selling a human being is the same as slavery. But is the fundamental nature of the exchange altered because money passes hands? One is still giving over a human being into the hands of another, but pricing actually reduces the odds of abuse.

This leads to the second objection: what about well-heeled paedophiles? The odds of this are actually rather minuscule, but in any case the State will monitor the child even more closely than it does in the case of free adoptions or, better yet, a private adoption agency which will have an interest in ensuring that its adoptees are placed with good homes in order to get more clients.

The third objection is that of human trafficking. But a market for children will actually reduce the chances of this, for two reasons – first, there will be fewer vulnerable children, since the chances of them being placed in a home is greater than under the present system; second, private adoption agencies will more efficiently monitor adopted children than does the State, for the same reason given above.

No one can argue that the present system serves the best interests of children. That is why alternatives need to be seriously considered.

Elton Singh, Couva

EDITOR'S NOTE: The opinions expressed in this letter do NOT reflect the views of the Sunday Newsday.