In my last post, Adoption Cost: Putting Certain Races "On Sale", I talked about the practice of some adoption agencies charging different adoption fees based upon the race of the child adopted. In most of these situations, Caucasian babies cost more money to adopt than non-Caucasian babies through the same agency. I provided arguments for and against the practice of putting non-Caucasian babies "on sale" and asked for readers' opinions. One reader left the following comment:

I always assumed that the purpose was to make the adoption of AA children more "affordable" to AA parents who might not be able to raise $20,000 and still have a college fund. Sort of like health clinics with a "sliding scale" based on income.

If you read the "pets for sale" in the newspaper, female puppies almost always cost several hundred more than male puppies. Why? Because the supply exceeds the demand. As soon as an agency has a waiting list of parents-to-be demanding AA or bi-racial infants, the agency will raise their prices across the board for infants and start discounting "older kids" or "handicapped kids" just like the state foster systems do already by providing supplements.

~ MamaS on Adoption Cost: Putting Certain Races "On Sale"

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I, personally, do not support the practice of "discounting" non-Caucasian babies because I believe that all children are precious and should not be sent the message that they are of less value just because they are not Caucasian. Also, I think it is a bad idea to encourage parents to adopt a child of a particular race by offering a discount because transracial adoptions have special considerations that need to be evaluated. I think it is great if an adoptive couple chooses to adopt a child transracially, but this should be an informed decision rather than a money-saving one.

I suspect that MamaS's comment probably represents the adoption agency's position on providing the racial discount. Lowering the cost enables more people to adopt, which provides more homes to these children. That being said, it seems like it would be fairer to apply the sliding scale to the financial situation of the people adopting rather than to the race of the baby being adopted. Not every African-American couple has trouble paying $20,000 to adopt a baby, and not every Caucasian couple has the means to pay that much. We cannot make assumptions, based solely on race, about what an adoptive couple could afford.

Also, the discount is provided to anyone adopting a non-Caucasian child, regardless of the adoptive couple's race, so the net effect might be to strong arm a couple of more limited means to adopt a child they might not have chosen otherwise solely to get the price break. While some couples might rise to the occasion, no child should be a "consolation prize" for a couple who could not afford another child.

I agree with MamaS that the supply and demand rationale used with selling puppies is being applied to children, and I have a problem with that. As much as I love dogs, I recognize that dogs are property while human beings are not. This racial discounting feels more like "baby buying" than providing a baby with the best possible home.

Related Blog:

Transracial/Transcultural Adoption blog

Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt