Researched this thread on Child Protection Services in the US and found that compared internationally, the US has a massive adoption industry more than 10 times larger (per capita) than any other industrialized country. Yearly revenues exceed $14 billion, with over 110.000 US children adopted every year (comp. Germany: 3700)
Apparently this industry boomed after Bill Clinton signed The Adoption and Safe Family Act. And because international adoptions have declined world wide, the industry requires a steady supply of US children.
I''ve been reading story after story about court room battles with adoptive parents pitted against natural parents, coercive counseling, dubious attorneys and adoption agencies, corrupt judges and babies a few days old literally taken away from their mother's breast by sheriffs.
There's even an award for worst companies in this industry, They've named them Demons of Adoption, because Congress has a yearly award called Angels of Adoption. Ironically the Angels winners are excellent resources for investigation not least because many if not most of the 'Angels of Adoption' Congressional Award winners go on to win the Demons of Adoption Award only a few years later.
Now I would not want to accuse every adoptive parent of dubious motives for wanting to buy these children. But roughly half of them have subsidized disabilities special needs. And why should the demand for domestic children be a factor 10 larger than other countries?
Reading this (empathetic, but still casually obtuse about even wanting someone else's baby) adoptive parent's story, I was surprised to hear the waiting time is usually less than three months, and adoptive parents are matched according to profiles to 'birthmothers' - a term that appears to be a reverse euphemism for natural parent.
Those seeking to adopt may choose the race they're prepared to parent, and the amount of drug and alcohol use they find acceptable during the pregnancy. They may decide what level of mental illness they are comfortable with in the birth mother's history. And they may decide as well if they are prepared for—or desire—a child with special needs.
In short, it's a dating service connecting adoptive parents with mothers/babies. The former throw a lot of money at their baby wish, adoption agencies hire coercive counselors, dubious attorneys and if need be corrupt judges all to satisfy their customer's wish for someone else's baby.
And this US industry, unique in the developed world and rather disturbing in its implications, demands a steady supply of US children (>110.000 a year) and that requires 'breeding grounds' of sustained poverty, drug abuse, disabilities and child medicalization, strict abortion laws, expensive contraception and sexualization of early teens.
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Yuke ago
A rhetorical question but I'll answer anyway just to concur with you. As you point out in your opening paragraph, the reason is because they monetized it just like everything else, and it became an area of business. Pretty sick really.