The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry

by Mirah Riben

An in-depth examination of the corruption in the adoption industry; the fine line between black and gray market adoption; scams, coercion and exploitation; international adoption; foster care. Foreword by Evelyn Robinson, author, MA, Dip Ed, BSW. Myths that prevail in adoption primarily to replicate motherhood are examined. Myriad of adoption experts are interviewed and quoted throughout who agree that adoption has changed from being child-centered...

• Format: Perfect Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1427608954
• ISBN13: 9781427608956
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: AdvocatePublications.com
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Revealing the truth behind adoption

Adoption surrounds us. We all know someone who has considered adoption, is adopted, or has given up a child for adoption. Law and society have evolved, so that adoption is celebrated, no longer a shameful secret. Few, however, are aware of the less-savory side of adoption, nor its ongoing impact on our country. In her new book, "The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry," author Mirah Riben tackles the truth behind the myths. "Infant adoption is a multi-billion dollar unregulated industry... run by those with little or no training or education in the field of child welfare or social services. It has become a total distortion of the intended purpose of finding homes for orphaned children, and instead exploits mothers and commodifies their children," Riben says. According to the author's research, adoption hasn't progressed much since the orphan trains of the nineteenth century. Anyone can be an "adoption professional," for there are no requirements or standards. Today's baby brokers use the Internet to ply their trade, while state agencies push children into unmonitored homes to claim federal subsidies. Celebrity adoptions demonstrate the widespread disregard for the rules. Prospective adoptive parents are among the victims of this horrific trade. Vulnerable in the face of infertility, they are presented with an idealized picture that neglects detail. "The fact is that adoption is a business; babies are priced based on age, race, ethnicity, health, and physical ability." Corruption is rampant, and a failed outcome can be devastating. Riben offers guidelines to avoid being victimized, and recommends a thorough background check of any adoption agent. Although most adoptions today are considered "open," these words have little legal meaning for a birth mother. Riben quotes the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse (NAIC), "Unless sanctioned by law, agreements for post-adoption contact are purely voluntary and cannot be enforced in court." The promise of open adoption lures expectant mothers to ensure a steady supply of adoptable infants. "The reality is that there is no guarantee that adoption will provide a better life, only a different one." The author also addresses the plight of those adult adoptees whose records are sealed, and who therefore face considerable obstacles in learning their background. "Adoption records were never sealed to protect mothers who surrender-or those adopted-and do not exist now for their protection." Those who lobby against open records do so on behalf of the brokers, to secure their bottom line. "Maintaining sealed adoption records does not "protect" mothers-or adoptees-from shame; it legitimizes it." Evelyn Robinson, one of Australia's leading adoption experts, asks in the book's foreword, "What is wrong with adoption in the United States... Greed and consumerism masquerade as altruism, as parents and children are drawn into a quicksand of legal and illegal adoption." S

This book tells the truth

From the beginning of state regulated closed records adoption in the early 1930s, state legislatures, social workers, and adoption agencies painted adoption as giving both birth mothers and adoptees a clean slate, a new life, not encumbered by the taint of being labeled a whore, slut, or bastard. As such, what was to become the adoption industry has painted a picture a la a Norman Rockwell painting of an idealized American family where adoption creates a seamless garment that is in the best interest of not only the birth mother and child but also in the best interest of adoptive parents. However, since the publication of Jean Patton's book, Breaking Silence, in 1954 the rose colored glasses have come off for birth mothers, adoptees, and adoptive parents. At first slowly but with ever increasing awareness and force, birth mothers and adoptees began the painful self-discovery that secrecy in adoption is not in their best interest; in fact, the closed records system of adoption has created generations of both birth mothers and adoptees not simply scared by the experience but traumatized for life. Birth mothers found that they can never forget the child they had been coerced into relinquishing as they had been told they would by their clergy, doctors, and social workers. Adoptees found that even in the happiest of adoptive families they cannot deny feelings of not quite belonging, not quite fitting in, and that there is an empty hole in their lives. In 1971 Florence Fisher authored, The Search for Anna Fisher and founded the Adoption Liberation Movement Association and in 1975 Emma May Vilardi founded the International Soundex Reunion Registry to facilitate the reunion of birth mothers and adoptees. Also during the 1970 daytime talk shows hosted by Phil Donahue and Merv Griffin began to facilitate reunions and broadcast them on their shows. In 1978 Lee Campbell formed Concerned United Birthparents and was invited to give input into the writing of the Model State Adoption Act which would revolutionize adoption in America by striking down state laws that mandated closed records adoption. Also in 1978 the American Adoption Congress was formed and held the first ever march on Washington to raise public awareness of the problems caused by secrecy in adoption and the need to open adoption records for adult adoptees. It looked like meaningful reform in adoption law was just a step away. However, such reform was extremely threatening to the multi-billion dollar per year adoption industry comprised of adoption attorneys, social workers, and private adoption agencies. Not only would such reform change the landscape of their cash cow, but it also held the possibility that as birth mothers and adoptees reunited the many unethical, immoral, and illegal practices of adoption attorneys and adoption agencies would come to light resulting in crippling law suits. Consequently, the National Council for Adoption was formed in 1980 as an industry trade group of adopt

Kudoos, Mirah, don't put down your pen!

When I read Mirah Riben's brisk polemic against adoption as we know it in America I found myself internally screaming: How can we make this book required reading for every person considering adoption--both the women who give birth and the people who adopt? For good measure, let's get it to every legislator in this country who doesn't yet understand that the commerce of adoption has not served those for whom it was ostensibly designed: the children. Perhaps I'm jaded: I'm one of the women still caught in the trap of a closed adoption of the mid-Sixties, when I surrendured a daughter to adoption. Do I feel abused by the system Riben so systematically takes apart? Yes. But our voices are lost in the din of would-be adopters who have delayed conception until their plan to build a family is through the taking of someone else's child--and severing as many ties as possible with the child's natural family and heritage. Thankfully, Riben exposes this calculating and cruel mind-set--and what it has done to the children--with copious and well-documented research and a clear, engaging writing style. Given today's shortage of American babies available for adoption, Riben's chapters on the international adoption trade are especially revealing and moving. Case studies, statistics, analysis--Riben uses all the tools to make her point and delivers it with the crushing blow of a hammer. No one who reads this book will come away without thinking that the adoption policies of America need to be re-thought and re-done. Riben, a longtime adoption-reform activist, deserves more attention and credit than I fear she will receive. Kudoos, Mirah, don't put down your pen! --Lorraine Dusky, author of "Birthmark" (1979), the first memoir from a birth mother.

A Passionate Voice

Mirah Riben is a passionate voice for adoption reform. She has spent decades researching and writing about how mothers -- often single and without resources -- have been coerced, even forced, into surrendering their children to adoption. I'm an adoptive mother. I've known my daughter's parents for ten years, and have some appreciation of the pain they're still experiencing over not having been able to raise their child. (And knowing her as a young adult will never make up for this loss.) They should have been able to raise her. They would have been very good parents. Like many single parents during and after the "baby scoop" years, they were made to believe that they had no right to keep their child. Of course I feel guilt at being party to their pain. But (and I know this is no real excuse) I had also been brainwashed. I knew that, if my sisters or I had become pregnant before marriage, we would have been forced to surrender our babies too. It seemed that that was just the way the world was. And Mirah Riben is trying to change that world. She's trying to empower single, pregnant young women, and to prevent them from being coerced into giving up their children. I very much hope she succeeds.

Telling It Like It Is

"The Stork Market" is a must read for those considering adoption or surrendering a child for adoption; and for public policy makers. Adoption is usually thought of as a positive event - finding a family for an unwanted child; helping a woman go on with her life without a burden she cannot bear. In fact, adoption has become a total distortion of the intended purpose of finding homes for orphaned children. It is a multi-billion dollar unregulated business which exploits mothers and commodifies children. The demand for adoptable children - particularly healthy white infants -- far exceeds the supply. Couples and singles desperate to be parents pay thousands of dollars for the babies that become available. Meanwhile American children who need homes are languishing in foster care. "The Stork Market" leads us through the seamy side of adoption: Trusting couples desiring a child scammed of thousands of dollars. Women convinced to travel across country to deliver a child in a state "friendly" to adoption. Women required to pay thousands of dollars because they did not turn over the "goods." Men denied their paternal rights by convoluted laws requiring them to sign up on "putative father registries." Poor children in Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America kidnapped and smuggled into the United States. And its not just prospective adoptive parents and natural parents who suffer. Adoption cuts children off from blood relatives and denies them the right to know their origins. Unscrupulous adoption practioners place children with anyone who can pay their fees. Sadistic adopters abuse - even murder - children entrusted to them. Riben not only exposes the problems but offers common-sense solutions. Mothers should be made aware of their options. They should have sufficient time to consider and re-consider their decision. Fathers should have actual notice of the birth of their child and the pending adoption so that they can assert their rights. International adoption should be curtailed and resources made available to poor women to allow them to raise their children. Adoption agencies should be licensed and regulated. Private adoptions conducted by "facilitators," attorneys, doctors, and others should be outlawed. Finally Riben recommends that adoption - cutting off all legal ties between the child and his original family -- be replaced with guardianship-like arrangement. Adoptive parents would have custody but the child would retain a relationship with the original family.