The Story Behind "Babies on Sale"

Those who have seen the online video “Babies on Sale” may come away with both a quick chuckle and concern about adoption. The video, starring Tony Slade, Danica Moore and Charles McNear reveals an alarming reality of the adoption process. In Babies on Sale, an adoption agent happily announces a discount on human infants. The represented agency has a wide inventory of babies, making it the ideal destination for couples seeking adoption. While delivered as comedy at best, Babies on Sale offers a deeper insight into capitalism in the world of adoption.

Many adoption agencies receive large profits after facilitating the adoption of a baby. This indicates that these adoption agencies are more concerned with their bottom line, so they operate much like typical businesses. While there are costs that cannot be avoided, adoption agency fees have been astronomical over the years. The lowest standard cost to adopt an infant is about $22,000 currently. These costs include the necessary legal debt and other associated expenses including agency fees.

However, infants are being adopted for over $40,000 at some adoption agencies. These high fees are paid for both domestic and international adoptions. In fact, a healthy infant born in the United States could cost up to $60,000 to adopt. This may not be that big of an issue if there were an abundance of infants available for adoption. However, infants are more easily obtained through private agencies and independent adoptions. It is this fact that gives adoption agencies an opportunity to take advantage of hopeful parents.

The adoption of infants in America is a matter of supply and demand. The agency that can provide a healthy infant gets the gold. On one hand, it should be a good to know that children have found loving homes. However, it is painstakingly obvious that babies are stuck in the middle of greedy and critical transactions between adoption agencies and prospective parents. They have become a product that is being traded for money.

Couples are placed a delicate situation when choosing to adopt a child. With a potential $60,000 expense hanging over their head, couples have to decide on how bad they want a child. Adoption agencies are the result of such a difficult decision. This is sad that children are placed much like merchandise by adoption agencies. Before paying out tens of thousands of dollars, one must choose between adoption and purchasing a new car.

“Do I want a child or should I get the new BMW M5”? As brutal as the comparison may seem, this is the reality of adoption nationwide. The high fees charged by adoption agencies are the result of such a likening. Infants are being treated like merchandise. The youngest and healthiest will bring in the most profit. Children with special needs and older kids are less expensive. For that reason, those who are not able to pay for a healthy infant can always adopt a child with special needs or an 8 year-old from the local Department of Social Services and Welfare.

Using the aforementioned product comparison, a couple who budgeted properly could adopt a sexually abused toddler from a public agency and still have enough money left over to get a Toyota Yaris. However, many couples desire newborn babies. Adoption agencies are aware of this and take advantage every chance that they get. People who want babies can get them so long as they do not mind paying high fees for them. The fact that children are given different price tags dependent upon their health, age and background should be alarming in and of itself.

Couples who cannot afford to pay high fees are even offered financial loans and other incentives. It is be normal for someone to take out a loan to buy a house or attend school. Only in our society do we allow loans to be provided for the purpose of adopting a child. Due to the way that adoption agencies operate, the term “adoption” is just another fancy word used to replace “purchase”. In reality, that is what couples are doing. Adoption agencies are selling and couples are buying.

When adoption fees are lowered significantly, then maybe one will believe the true concept of adoption that is marketed everywhere. The true concept of adoption should be carried out with the sole purpose of helping a child find loving parents. There are an abundance of children who are in need of caring homes. Children are no cheap to care for. It already costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise a child. The same money used to adopt a baby could be utilized to provide food, shelter and a college education for the same child. There is no justification for charging additional and unnecessary fees to facilitate an adoption. The agencies that do so should be ashamed of themselves.

http://www.nacac.org/how_adoptiontypes.html
http://www.adoptionservices.org/adoption/adoption_costs.htm

Net Neutrality.....Don't wait until you lose control of your voice and internet access

What exactly is net neutrality, and why its important to people like you and I .

Viacom buys Atomfilms for $200 million

While browsing the very few blogs that I read (aside from the Madlab Post, of course), I came across some rather disturbing news about the online video streaming industry. Viacom is buying Atomfilms to add it to their property list that includes CBS, Paramount and Blockbuster among other entities. Why can't companies remain on their own? Online video is something that independent filmmakers benefit from because we don't have restrictions on showing our work to the masses without waiting for someone else's green light. This move is another way that these greedy media conglomerates get to control the world of entertainment and news.

Atomfilms is a part of Atom Entertainment, which also owns Addicting Clips and Addicting Games, both of which will also be handed over to Viacom, whenever this deal is complete.
I see another revenue stream for independent filmmakers, flying out of the door. Atomfilms licenses short movies and pays royalties to filmmakers whose work they put on the website.
So, when Viacom picks them up, will short films continue to be licensed....I think not.

Why license shorts from films festivals and the like, when you have your own content from the film studios and television networks under your belt? I am curious to see what happens when this hits the hay. Every addition to a Media Conglomerate's holdings makes it harder for the independent film community, every time.

For those who may not agree, and think that it's nothing wrong with large companies swallowing everything up that they want, let me ask you........where are the independent television stations?
I'm not talking about the low-power ones either. The information that we recieve in the world today is all controlled by one source, so there is one message that we get, whether it's from the web, the newspaper or on television. For this issue to be tackled, we must first ask ourselves...what is wrong with that picture? The problem will not solve itself. We must do something about it now before it gets out of hand. What am I saying? It's already out of hand and it's moving over into the information highway. Letters to the FCC anyone? In the meantime, I will be working very hard to make it through the mainstream and alternative distribution avenues that are available for the time being.