[paigeturner]

I’ve been following this particular thread for days and trying to sort out my own feelings about it. Raven, I’m glad you posted what you did. Not because the tone of it or wording might have hurt feelings but because it helped me sort out what I’ve been feeling for a very long time. That a domestic infant adoption can cost 30-40k or more is outrageous. It isn’t the pregnant woman that is holding hopeful adoptive parents hostage; it’s the agencies, attorneys and those that work with them. I believe that any person or entity making an unreasonable profit off of a crisis pregnancy and the hopes and dreams of adoptive parents are in fact engaging in human trafficking.

For cripes sake, our government still regulates things like affordable telephone service, but the key people involved in the adoption triad are left to fend for themselves? It is wrong that agencies hold out a carrot of living expenses and other perks to an expectant mother and extort adoptive parents. This isn’t an “us vs. them” issue with “us” being birth parents and “them” being adoptive parents; this should be an “us vs. them” issue with “us” being ALL involved in the triad and “them” being the profiteers. Real reform can’t happen in a vacuum. Real reform can only happen in a strategic way with all of us working for the reform of our horrible adoption laws.

And, coercion…yes, IMO telling a woman who has just given birth and who has just said “hello” to her child that if you don’t hand the child back you’ll be forced to pay back support is coercion. Those dollars should not have been paid by the hopeful adoptive parents to the expectant mother in the first place. Adoptive parents are being extorted, but I don’t believe that the expectant parent in most cases is the one doing the extorting. In those cases where there is fraud perpetuated by an expectant mother to a hopeful adoptive parent – they should be prosecuted heavily. There should be protections in place for everyone and harsh punishments for those that are being unethical and fraudulent.