Unwanted babies and social implications

Accounting - Unwanted Babies

UNWANTED BABY AUCTIONS

In Principle, the concept outlined in the Baby Ebay proposal reflects legitimate goals and the concern for the well-being of unwanted babies. While the proposal is logical, it is also likely to be perceived negatively for several reasons related to the idea of marketing human beings for profit. There are several very positive aspects of the proposal as well as certain negative aspects. While the fundamental objection to purchasing babies will be difficult to overcome, certain changes to the proposal may improve receptivity to the idea. Positive Aspects of the Proposal:

Positive aspects of the proposal include the potential financial benefit to the state and to child welfare agencies, improved and more thorough background investigations of potential adoptive parents, and better placement options for each infant. Increased revenue to the state benefits everyone in the state; increased revenue to child welfare- related agencies benefits the community they serve by funding improvements in the quality and availability of services, as well as the quality of the applicant pool available for employees if those revenues are channeled back into employee benefits.

Furthermore, if one assumes that unwanted infants raised by biological parents with no other options have a lower quality environment and upbringing than infants who are wanted by the families into which they are born, the benefits quite possibly extend to include better lives for the infants themselves.

Generally, Figure 1 (below) represents the standard economic model that would describe the relative availability (or supply) of babies in relation to the numbers of families seeking to adopt children (demand). The intersection of these two variables would provide the optimal pricing range (represented by the square) if babies were simply sold on the open market. In the case of a Baby Ebay auction, the optimal pricing measure might be used both to predict the final auction price of babies in the inventory and also to predict their final auction sale price.

Negative Aspects of the Proposal:

The most obvious negative aspect of the proposal is overcoming the fundamental objections in the minds of most people in connection with selling babies for profit.

However, the underlying argument equating the revenue generated on behalf of state adoption and child welfare-related agencies with improvement in their relative ability to provide quality services is logically sound.

The potential for greed and purposeful impregnation for profit is another negative aspect, but that could be eliminated simply by ensuring that any fees raised for the sale of babies benefits the state rather than the biological parents. At the same time, those benefits could also be used to improve the health and welfare of unwanted babies by funding comprehensive quality prenatal care for biological mothers who register in the program during their pregnancy. Another significant negative aspect of the proposal as drafted is that it presents a situation where wealth is the only determinant of which prospective families receive infants under the program. While a higher family income is generally a benefit to children, the prospect of the wealthy virtually excluding the less wealthy from the state adoption process is inadvisable.

Suggestion for Changes to the Proposal:

While the underlying concept of generating revenue by selling unwanted babies to families who wish to adopt them may be a good idea in many respects, there is no real necessity to structure it as an auction. The association with online auctions would only magnify the intensity of the knee-jerk reaction among many people who object to any notion of selling babies for profit. The publicity associated with the program would only be that much worse with headline like "Baby Ebay." A simple sales-based approach would still encounter significant opposition and moral condemnation, but it would probably be perceived somewhat more open-mindedly than the spectacle of last second bidding in the manner of other online auctions. Furthermore, the suggested changes to the format would also allow the program to consider the relative income of the prospective parents and require higher participation fees based on income to prevent the process to be dominated by mere wealth.

Instead of either an online auction or a direct sale of babies, the proposal should be restructured to design a program with all of the same principle objectives and potential benefits without the potential difficulties and moral objections likely to be provoked by an auction or direct sale. In that regard, the exact same goals of increased revenue to the state, increased revenue to child welfare-related agencies, improvements in the quality and the availability of child welfare agency services, and the improved quality of the state agency applicant pool would all be equally possible in another format altogether.

Specifically, the state should incorporate the same traditional calculations of projected unwanted babies available for inventory (supply), projected numbers of prospective adoptive families (demand), and all the administrative expenses associated with the program (costs) to establish a uniform registration fee for participation in the program and designation as an approved candidate for receiving a baby through the program.