They don’t seem to learn, do they?
There I was, minding my own business, not even planning on blogging on Chronicles today (or this week, or… well…), when a comment came in on an old post from March of this year. Odd, I thought. I figured it was spam. It was better than spam!
It was an adoption agency worker! Swell.
You can view the thread that Heidi from Adoptions from the Heart decided to crash, get name-cally, get angry and then seemingly apologize for at the end in its entirety over on the original post. What’s not on the post is her email that she sent after she faux-apologized. So we’ll put it here.
You say that you would only delete a comment or get upset if someone was personally attacking your family. The negative rumors on your blog are attacking my family. Not my work family but my actual family. I have no problem with people sharing their opinions and I expect to hear negative feedback occasionally. I hear lots of good feedback as well. Maxine is my mother, she founded this agency, so when I read false rumors being spread through the internet it is like a personal attack. Negative feedback is one thing rumors are another. I would have completely understood if you had taken that comment and investigated it and if you found something posted your findings but to put it out there the way it is hurts not only the agency and my family but also those families and women who are working with us. I apologize for not leaving information and moving on – the comments are getting out of hand and they are turning into an attack on me personally now . You want to protect those who feel free to post on your site and have it be a safe place for them to express themselves, yet I am being blasted for expressing mine.
I share that so everyone doesn’t think that the discussion ended with her “apology.”
Because my blogging ethics were called into question, let’s take a closer look at the ethical train wreck that is Adoptions from the Heart.
Want to know my Number One Reason for Hating Adoption Agencies? And it’s not how they treat or mistreat birth parents. It’s treating children like a commodity and, more specifically, treating non-white children like a lesser commodity. That’s right: Adoptions from the Heart charges different prices by race.
From their “domestic minority” pdf (as a warning, the monetary breakdown of how much children cost night make you sick):
Placement fees for African-American children are subsidized due to the great need for families to adopt children of this heritage. Placement fees can be found on our fee schedules. Fees and costs for the program are based on the fee schedule in effect at the time services are provided.
And, it gets even better from their FAQ:
8. We have wonderful biological children and want to adopt in order to give a child a home, do we have to be infertile to adopt?
Not necessarily. Currently there are less available Caucasian infants than there are families requesting to adopt them. Therefore AFTH will not be accepting applications for our Caucasian adoption program from families who are able to conceive a biological child. However, there is a need for families for African-American children in the US and many International adoption programs that allow families with children to adopt.
And so, in short, you can have yourself a black or biracial baby for cheaper! And if you can have your “own” babies, well then, you can still get one of our cheaper African American babies! See! We’re doing you a favor.
So, let’s get down to it if we’re going to talk about ethics, information sharing and the adoption industry. Suz saying, in the comments of a post specifically asking for information about adoption agencies, that she had unsubstantiated information and that it was hearsay was not an unethical discussion. Me asking for more information, but not following up because the couple adopting found out the unethical race issues in this post before I could even share the original post with them, is not an ethical misstep on my part. What was an unethical misstep on my part was not going back to the original post an letting all readers know that Adoptions from the Heart treats children of AA heritage as though they are somehow less than.
Price breakdowns by race are disgusting. (Of course, price breakdowns for any adoption at all really rub me the wrong way, but by race is horrifying. This is 2011, darn near 2012.) I don’t want justifications like “biracial babies are harder to place” or any such nonsense. Stop doing it. It’s wrong. It’s ugly. And, when it comes down to it, it’s just about the almighty dollar for the agencies. It’s not about “finding homes for the harder to place biracial children.” It’s about agencies knowing that they can charge more for white babies; it’s about knowing how to make more money.
And it’s disgusting.
Call me unhappy. Call me upset. But call a spade a spade: Adoptions from the Heart isn’t concerned with ethical adoption. They’re only concerned about “rumors” on the Internet and how they may or may not be perceived by those considering adoption. The truth, not the rumor, is this: Charging different prices for race is unethical. End of discussion.
