News What’s next? e-Baby?
posted by on November 9 at 11:57 AM
With folks all hot and bothered by Madonna’s rule-bending adoption of a boy from Malawi, we might be due for some widespread scrutiny of Americans’ rampant adoptions of foreign babies.
Like in Guatemala, where Americans adopt 1 out of every 100 babies born. The New York Times has an interesting story this week about Guatemala’s adoption business, which runs alarmingly opposite of most countries.
In other countries, adoptive parents are sought out for abandoned children. In Guatemala, children are frequently sought out for foreign parents seeking to adopt and given up by their birth mothers to baby brokers who may pay from a few hundred dollars to $2,000 for a baby, according to interviews with mothers and experts.
All that grousing for babies by brokers has led to tension in rural areas, which, thanks to high poverty rates, provide the most babies for adoption. While some women are relatively grateful that their kids will have a chance at a better life (even if they are bought and sold and never seen again), a lot of people resent the brokers.
When the three [brokers] returned as the pregnant woman’s term neared its end, her parents, who opposed giving up the child, alerted neighbors, who gathered angrily at the scene. The two women’s hair was forcibly cut off, a traditional form of Mayan justice meant to shame offenders… In early October, villagers in Ixtahuacán killed one person with machetes, captured another 12 and set fire to five cars when fear spread that a gang of child snatchers was in the area.
I don’t think it’s right to condemn any of the individuals in this process — they all think they’re doing the right thing. Poor Guatemalan mothers want their children raised in better conditions, American couples are childless and charitable and baby brokers say they’re just trying to help both sides. But something about the situation definitely rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s the whole cash-for-babies policy (that Rev. Ken Hutcherson rails against, too) or helping kids one-by-one while the country as a whole slips deeper and deeper into poverty. The scenario is a particularly grotesque demonstration of the standard-of-living gap between America and its neighbors. And an illustration of the root causes of the massive, highly-debated immigration across the southern border.
It just freaks me out that we live in a world where someone can buy every 100th child from its mother.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the stratification between the US and everyone else south of Texas. The whole immigration debate is dishonest because nothing will stop illegal immigration as long as the povery continues. Would you leave your home land for a place that dispises you if it wasn't the ONLY reasonable option?
As far as the adoption, the baby broker thing is REALLY creepy, but again, in poverty stricken area, a lot of creepy things happen. People do some F-ed up S to survive...
All I can say is that this is pretty crazy but I can totally see how it helps the mothers in question. It's an incredibly shackling experience to try and raise 5-10 kids. Not having to bother and cutting the emotional cord early frees a family up greatly.
Okay, I'm a nihilist. Sue me.
Well, the Catholic church is largely responsible for the overpopulation problems in Latin countries. Until people everywhere are educated about family planning, there will be every possible outrage and abomination all over the world, from overcrowding, poverty, pollution, destruction of the palnet's environments, etc.
You forget that not only is abortion banned in the Catholic Central and South America nations but birth control as well.
I can understand outrage if the baby brokers were selling kids into slavery or such. But giving these unwanted infants a chance at life in a loving, stable family? What's the problem, again?
Another good point about the catholic church. These mother f-ers have done more for poverty, overpopulation, corruption and global warming than anyone. Oh, I forgot AIDS. Telling people that condom use is a sin is unconsionable.
Regarding the topic, yes, the baby brokers are ultimately getting children out of poverty, but it is still creepy.
It's really easy for us to cluck our tongues and say, "How terrible." We're sitting in or homes or apartments which have monthly costs in excess of what your average Guatemalan makes in a year. Hell, the laptop I'm typing on costs more than they make in a year. The closer you get to the margin, the more it becomes about mere survival, rather than questions about morality. I don't think these women are pissed about selling their babies exactly. I think they're pissed about the economic circumstances that are forcing them to sell their babies and taking it out on the middlemen.
Actually, some organs (no pun intended) of the Catholic Church in Guatemala have taken a somewhat more progressive stance toward condom use, but mostly as a means of preventing sexually transmitted infections, not for family planning--I am thinking of Casa Inmigrante in San Marcos department (a very impoverished region which is a center of the immigrant trail through Central America)... The progressive parts of the church need to be encouraged to change their policies to promote family planning.
Rather than just being freaked out and deciding that thousands of Americans adopting overseas deserve "widespread scrutiny" because of what a celebrity does (We get PLENTY of scrutiny from governments, social workers and judgemental ignoramouses already, thanks), how about educating yourself about the entire process.
Hey, maybe you could even talk to lots of people and understand all the issues well enough to write a well-thought out analysis of the motives and actions of the people invovled. Sounds like something one might see in a newspaper somewhere.
Of course, that would be something that a hard working journalist might do. You seem happy to just read the results of other people's work and write a blog post about how it "freaks [you] out." Congrats, you've found your niche.
Hey Ja, welcome to a blog. Where the writers post links to interesting news and sites and make a comment and ask others to comment as well. If you want the author of this post to go to Guatemala and check out this situation herself, she's probably not going to be able to post every couple of hours.
And baby-buying should probably freak most people out. That's why it's illegal here.
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