A dear friend shared the following picture on her Facebook wall yesterday morning:
This immediately caught my attention, so I found Christian Adoption Consultants on the web. I wish to be clear. I did not find a chart like the above picture anywhere on their website. However, under the “Situations” tab, it does say that they do list mothers that haven’t been matched with a hopeful adoptive couple yet, and that they remove them when they match. Of course it doesn’t say “mothers” anywhere. They conveniently focus on the children these mothers are carrying, and call them birth mothers despite the fact that they’ve not relinquished their rights. From the same page, here is what the “fees” cover: “If you are a prospective adoptive couple and would like for your family profile to be presented to a birth mother or be considered by an agency to adopt, please contact us and we can help you select a consulting package. CAC charges a fee for consulting services offered. Services include adoption education, home study agency recommendation, adoption agency recommendations, profile services, DVD services, and adoption counseling recommendations. Each adoptive couple must be home study approved to be presented or considered by a birth parent for an adoption. Each adoptive couple must also apply to the licensed adoption agency that is placing the child.” Apparently the people that own CAC also own an actual agency, Hope For Adoption, as they mention that situations like the above example are not situations directly associated with their agency.
I hope that this seems highly unethical to you, as it does to me. I know that I’m biased because I’m a birth mom. Unfortunately there’s nothing illegal about what they do. Because children are treated by adoption as simple commodities and their biological parents as the factories for making those babies for more deserving people, there is an open market for baby brokers. The people that own CAC and the agency are not surprisingly adoptive parents. I would guess that they don’t have an open relationship with their daughter’s birth mother based on the following quote: “We know first hand that adoption can be confusing and overwhelming. During the adoption of our daughter, McKenna, we realized how important wise advice and guidance was. Because we were educated and informed, we adopted in less than 6 months and saved thousands of dollars.” Their focus is on how educated and informed they were to save themselves years of waiting and thousands of dollars. Their focus is not on the fact that they just happened to be chosen by their daughter’s biological family, because that’s all domestic infant adoption truly is at this point – luck. There are not enough biological families considering adoption to meet the desires of all the hopeful adoptive parents. Truly I believe there shouldn’t be. Adoption is entirely too focused on the needs of the hopeful adoptive parents. I do realize that hopeful adoptive parents are people too, and that they have needs. But adoption is so costly today partially because hopeful adoptive parents will pay anything to get the baby they desire. This fact is proven by the very existence of Christian Adoption Consultants. I find it ironic that Malcolm and Amy Young (the owners of CAC) “saved thousands of dollars” in their own adoption and then turn around and charge many more times that amount for their “services.”
Let’s talk a little more about their services, shall we? “In order to make your adoption experience as wonderful as ours was, we have established a team of adoption professionals, consultants, and social workers to assist you. Strong relationships have been built with reputable licensed agencies and private attorneys to give you more opportunities and selection of adoption situations. Our services are bundled to give you inclusive care throughout your adoption journey.” But how “reputable” are these licensed agencies and private attorneys, really? Their website goes on to say that they usually work with agencies and attorneys in states where the laws are “in favor of the adoptive couple.” I realize that just because certain states make it easier for someone to adopt doesn’t mean every adoption attorney or agency in that state would be unethical. But it does cause me to think if CAC has such strong relationships with particular agencies and attorneys in such states that those facilitators are not very ethical. If I had an agency or if I was an adoption attorney and I read CAC’s website, I would not want to have my name affiliated with them at all due to the lack of ethics they proudly display.
Their focus on getting hopeful adoptive parents the baby they want with a minimum of wait reminds me of a book entitled “Fast Track Adoption” by Dr. Susan Burns. Dr. Burns authored the book from the point of view of an adoptive mother. The entire book is focused on how to facilitate a relationship with an expectant mother to ensure she places her child with you. The birth mother of Burns’ child committed suicide shortly after this book came out. It’s not hard to theorize that she read the book, realized she’d been used, and decided that she couldn’t deal with that knowledge for the rest of her life. I love my life, but I can’t blame that birth mom for making the decision she did. I can honestly say that if I were in her shoes I might consider a similar choice.
I have not even addressed the fact yet that they’re charging different prices for different babies. I realize unfortunately the demand is for healthy Caucasian babies. I don’t know this for a fact, but I would guess that nearly all couples hoping to adopt have at least one person in the couple that is Caucasian. From what I know of African American culture, the emphasis is on keeping things familial. They adopt within their families. I actually think that there should be a culture shift in adoption where the focus is keeping children with their biological families, even if those children are not raised by at least one biological parent. I know for a fact that I would’ve chosen to relinquish Mack to someone outside my biological family even if that cultural emphasis was in place. However I do think that this cultural shift would eliminate some of the hopeful adoptive parents and adoptive parents that display entitled attitudes as highlighted by the existence of organizations like Christian Adoption Consultants. Adoption is all about supply and demand. There’s a great demand for healthy Caucasian infants. I think this is due to the fact that the majority of people hoping to adopt domestically are Caucasian, so the price for them is higher than for an infant of mixed racial heritage or one with a non-Caucasian heritage. I understand this fact from a business point of view. From a personal point of view, however, this makes me sick. I do not see how one could look at the different prices for different babies and think of them as anything but commodities. Children are not commodities and should not be treated as such. There are no clearance sales on children. Children may be considered precious like diamonds and jewels, but their race or health background should not be considered flaws and therefore discounted like a flawed diamond or precious stone might be discounted. If you adopt a child and pay less for that child because of his race or health background, how would you explain that to that child later in his or her life without causing that child to feel less worthy? “Johnny, we paid $10K to adopt you and it was worth every penny. We adopted Julie for $17K!” “Johnny” is not going to think that it was a good thing his adoption was cheaper so his parents could afford the fees. He’s going to feel like he wasn’t worth as much as “Julie.” Even if you tell “Johnny” in that situation that you would’ve paid $17K for him, that’s just going to add to his feeling that he was a commodity to be bought and sold.
As far as the name of their organization goes, I really have no words. Christian to me means a giving spirit. Their whole business is not about giving. It’s about taking the money of hopeful adoptive parents and coercing babies from the arms of their biological mothers to forward their business. It’s not focused on helping people in need unless you count the desires of hopeful adoptive parents for babies as a “need.” I still don’t think the needs of one should outweigh the needs of another. We forget when we focus on our own wants and desires that the needs of the child involved should outweigh the needs of everyone else. When a mother decides to relinquish her child, she feels that she cannot meet what she feels the child needs. She does not relinquish her child to meet the needs of the hopeful adoptive parents. She relinquishes her child to meet the needs of that child.
So how do we get organizations like CAC to stop operating? We stop giving them our business, of course. Hopeful adoptive parents, and in cases like these expectant parents as well, have all the power to stop unethical practices. If a hopeful adoptive couple is looking to join with an agency or hire an adoption attorney and aren’t comfortable with the ethics of that agency, then they can tell that agency or attorney as much and take their business somewhere else. I will continue to do my part in highlighting unethical agencies, but I can only educate on what I see. As I’ve already relinquished my daughter, I don’t hold the same power as an expectant mom considering adoption or a hopeful adoptive couple.