The Baby Market: The Case for Adoption Reform

by Anne Moody

Overview

A passionate and revealing examination of the unethical processes taking place within the U.S adoption system today.

Written by the director of an adoption agency and the author of The Children Money Can Buy, The Baby Market illustrates the dramatic changes that have taken place in infant adoption over the past two decades, resulting in what feels like a wild west of adoption in which money is the might that makes right and the law is very hard to find. The book follows the true stories of women who choose adoption for their babies, some of them making this choice multiple times. There are also stories from adoptive parents who relate their experiences with scams, disappointments, emotional and financial exploitation, and the dubious “assistance” of baby brokers. The process of adopting a baby involves struggle, uncertainty, and even heartache but, for many people, somehow manages to end happily when birth and adoptive parents create connections that respectfully and even joyfully meet their need for one another. The Baby Market provides welcome encouragement and much needed information about how to avoid the numerous pitfalls inherent in adoption and offers suggestions for the reform of a corrupted adoption system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538174722
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/05/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	182
File size:	337 KB

About the Author

Anne Moody has been the co-director of an agency specializing in infant adoption for the past 24 years. She is the author of The Children Money Can Buy: Stories from the Frontlines of Foster Care and Adoption, published in 2018 by Rowman and Littlefield. She is also an adoptive parent and both her professional and personal background inform her work as an adoption specialist who advises clients on all aspects of the adoption experience.

Table of Contents

Glossary

Introduction

1. The Vagaries Of The Market Place
2. Owen and Kira: An Adoptive Family Story
3. Why Is Adoption So Hard?
4. Lindy: A Birth Mother’s Story
5. Where Does All the Money Go?
6. Yes, It’s Legal
7. Middle Men
8. Julia: A Single Adoptive Mother’s Story
9. Birth Mothers In The Media
10. Did Birth Mother’s Change?
11. What Will We Tell the Children?
12. What About The Siblings?
13. Matt and Hannah: A Foster-To-Adopt Story
14. What About All the Kids In Foster Care?
15. Working With The Child Welfare System
16. Not To Scare You…But
17. Adoption Specialists
18. Adoption Reform
19. Closing the Gray Market

Afterword

Editorial Reviews

Anne’s book is a must read. With infertility on the rise around the world, we as a society are being forced to ask (and answer) some big ethical questions. Anne’s book does an excellent job of presenting some of the moral dilemmas we face in addition to exposing so many of the deeply rooted misperceptions that exist around adoption.

Erin Quick

Anne Moody has a great depth of experience in the adoption field, and brings that to bear in the The Baby Market in a way that should be of great value to readers. Her book is critical and essential reading for anyone whose work touches on adoption, as well as for anyone considering adoption.

Anna Quinn

Informed by deep experience and written with great clarity and compassion, The Baby Market delivers a unique insider's perspective on what’s wrong with the adoption industry today. An important new addition to understanding the vital need for adoption reform.

Kathryn Joyce

This well stated piece about the current state of adoption practice is recommended reading for families exploring their options.

Rita L. Bender

Anne Moody's The Baby Market is a passionate and revealing examination of the American adoption system. Moody, an adoption counselor and agency director for almost forty years, and an adoptive parent herself, offers us an insider's look into an appallingly broken network, as well as ways to fix it. Her book is essential reading for anyone hoping to create a just and corruption free process for all members of the adoption triangle; birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted children.

David Guterson

With empathy, passion, and scrupulous logic, Anne Moody has drawn from her decades of facilitating adoptions to denounce a system that defies regulation and reform. Mountains of cash are turning American adoption into a heartbreaking, unethical, and inequitable mutation. She tells true stories of adoptions in which honest brokers did not stand a chance against scams, incompetents, and all-too-proficient profiteers who leave middle class parents no recourse but to spend their savings to compete in a top-heavy market on adoptions that may never come to pass.The Baby Market is an indictment not only of the adoption system but America’s subordinating children’s welfare to the marketplace. Moody not only provides a guide for prospective parents but solutions to the inequities that victimize everyone involved.

Andrew Ward

02/01/2023

As an adoption agency director and counselor for more than 40 years and an adoptive parent herself, Moody (The Children Money Can Buy) attempts to open eyes to the abuses within the system. Adoption costs have risen dramatically and unpredictably in the last decade. As a result, most adoptive parents in the U.S. are white and college-educated, with a high-paying career and health insurance. This book's case studies profile the often heart-wrenching stories of parents who find themselves desperate to adopt yet struggle to find reliable information. Agencies often have good intentions, Moody believes, although many are insufficiently skilled and some are even unscrupulous. Filled with personal accounts and packed with information, the book advocates finding an experienced adoption counselor, openly voicing complaints to help reform the system, and fighting for the establishment of national laws to close the gray market for adoption. VERDICT Many parents will likely find this to be a helpful resource. Advocates for children will find plenty of ideas and guidance.

Library Journal