Baby selling refers to the illegal practice of selling one’s own baby or acting as an agent to negotiate a deal and sell a newborn for the birth parent or parents. Even though baby selling is illegal you will still find people who are willing to sell a baby for profit and of course the individuals who are desperate enough to buy them. Baby selling is not to be confused with legal adoptions.
A legal adoption is a procedure where each state will grant all legal rights and responsibilities to the adoptive parents. These adoptions go through a court appointed agency with strict regulations throughout the process. There are two types of legal adoptions; open and shut. Each state will decide on accepting both or only one form of adoption.
In an open adoption the parents have a right to choose the adoptive parents for their newborn. Whereas in closed adoptions they forfeit all rights as a parent and the child is taken from them and put up for adoption. Some states allow payment in exchange for health and medical fees that the pregnant mothers incurs, while other states do not allow any direct payment from the adoptive parent to the biological parent. Many times the adoption agency or adoption lawyer will handle all legal fees. Having said that sometimes lawyers and adoption agencies are accused of baby selling in the USA if the fees they charge seem to be well above the norm.
There are no safeguards with baby selling. Often time the child is sold to the highest bidder. There is nothing open about the adoptions. These financial transactions are usually done underground so that no criminal charges can be laid upon the buyer or seller. Don’t be fooled by the fact that the mediator appears to be part of an agency. Check out that agency first to make sure it is legal. Once the baby is sold the parent will not know anything about the baby from that point forward. The new parents do not know anything about where the baby came from, any illness in the family or other things that might affect the baby’s health. If the baby was stolen from their parents in a third world country that is not known either.
Fortunately there are safeguards in place for a legitimate adoption. Any child entering the USA must pass the USCIS processing rules for immigration before allowed entrance. It is not known how much baby selling actually goes on in the USA and from which sources the infant is coming from.
If you are a person wanting to adopt a baby, make sure you do it legally. Bending the rules will not help you to have a baby faster because you may feel you do not qualify for adoption under the conventional channels. It would not be wise to negotiate with a stranger advertising in an underground newspaper or website. You do not know these people, there is no legal investigation done to see if the pregnancy is even legitimate or if these people are just trying to make money. With a real adoption agency you will know that that there is a pregnancy through a mandatory pregnancy test. Other DNA testing will be done to insure the baby is healthy, such as drug and alcohol DNA testing for indigent women, ultrasounds, many even amniocentesis in case there are any serious illness in the family, back ground checks, health records and more. Play it safe, do it right and wait for your perfect baby!