Adoption comes with a price

I made some phone calls last week and was in contact with an adoption agency in Arkansas that can work with NY families. I was excited, because most can't and Arkansas has some great adoption laws. I sent them our names and address and they sent us an information packet, which I received yesterday. I will not mention the name of the agency, but they do many placements a year.

When I opened it up, I was outraged. There was a price list for adoptions and it was broken up into three catagories as follows:

Caucasian baby-$25,000
Biracial baby $15,000
Baby of color (I guess they mean African American) $10,000

WHAT???? Why is one baby more than another. Every baby is a precious life. I know their are a shortage of families that wish to adopt biracial or African American babies and making the price affordable would help, but this is rediculous. Why can't it be actual medical and birthmother costs plus a flat fee of say $5,000 or $10,000, which can be reduced for harder to place babies. These prices don't include traveling and all legal fees.What has become of our society? In reality, a birthmom may have medical insurance and have very little financial need. I guess they are making over $20,000 on her if she is caucasian. Less if the
baby is not full caucasian. Do they treat birthmothers carrying caucasian babies differently? I would hope not! Are they reluctant to take on birthmothers with medical bills because it cuts into their profits?

This sounds like buying a car, you can get a bare bones Nissan Sentra for $10K, an Altima for $15K and if you have the money, you can get a fancy Murano for $25K.

Putting price tags on these situations makes is seem inhumane. We are talking about people and the life of an infant here, not a financial transaction.

I guess it comes down to supply and demand. Caucasian infants are in demand And agencies and facilitators know they can get top dollar placing these babies.
Just another reason why I am in favor of independent private adoption. A birthmother can go online or read a newspaper and talk to and decide from an unlimited number of couples, who should adopt her baby. There are no hidden motives. All hopeful adoptive parents that are advertising are homestudy approved. Adoptive parents, if chosen, pay all legal, medical, counseling, as well as allowable living fees, if needed. Our attorney has done adoptions this way for as little as $6,000.

As you may have already guessed, we're not signing on with this agency.