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The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry

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The Stork Market by Mirah Riben, is a must read, for anyone touched by adoption. It is an informative, well-documented and fascinating expose of the many abuses - permeating a muti-billion dollar, unregulated adoption industry. Written in a crusading, investigative reporting style, the Stork Market is a courageous book. It will please many in the adoption world, but is sure to threaten others - especially those who profit from the lucrative business of adoption.
As a pediatric/child psychologist, I have worked in the trenches and treated hundreds of the worst-case casualties, of our closed adoption system; so I can attest to the truth in this important book, and offer first person witness, to the validity of much that Ms Riben documents and is concerned about. Surely, a family system based on secrecy, lies, and a denial of human/civil rights can not ultimately be "in the best interest of the child;" and a passionate caring that the needs of the children be primary, "not secondary, or even worse, irrelevant to an adult's agenda," is evident throughout the book.
The Stork Market was especially touching, in my understanding of birth mothers and their feelings about the children they gave up for adoption. Treating troubled adopted children/teens and their adoptive parents, I have mainly known birth parents, only through their children's fantasies about them - or sketchy information (very often based on outright lies) told to the adoptive parents by agencies, lawyers or "facilitators." The book deepens insight into a piece of the adoption triangle, the "ghost mother," seldom seen by child or family therapists - even those specializing in adoption issues.
However, despite it's much needed focus on the many problems and abuses in the adoption world (or perhaps because of this), the Stork Market loses objectivity and balance - with barely any mention of successful outcomes in adoption - or loving, caring and even validating adoptive parents. There are risk factors in adoption; but we should give credit to those adoptive parents, who have given their children the support and strength to navigate so many uphill challenges.
As Ms Riben writes, "Adoption is a very personally and emotionally charged issue for those touched by it. Few can think about it without passion." Absolutely true - but passion can cloud objectivity, and we need to all be on the same team (adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, therapists), to fix this flawed system - and make adoption work better.
Nontheless, The Stork Market is an important book, and a must read for anyone interested in the subject of adoption.
David Kirschner, PhD., Author - Adoption: Uncharted Waters.

Adoption surrounds us. We all know someone who has considered adoption, is adopted, or has given up a child for adoption. Law and society have evolved, so that adoption is celebrated, no longer a shameful secret. Few, however, are aware of the less-savory side of adoption, nor its ongoing impact on our country. In her new book, "The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry," author Mirah Riben tackles the truth behind the myths.

"Infant adoption is a multi-billion dollar unregulated industry... run by those with little or no training or education in the field of child welfare or social services. It has become a total distortion of the intended purpose of finding homes for orphaned children, and instead exploits mothers and commodifies their children," Riben says.

According to the author's research, adoption hasn't progressed much since the orphan trains of the nineteenth century. Anyone can be an "adoption professional," for there are no requirements or standards. Today's baby brokers use the Internet to ply their trade, while state agencies push children into unmonitored homes to claim federal subsidies. Celebrity adoptions demonstrate the widespread disregard for the rules.

Prospective adoptive parents are among the victims of this horrific trade. Vulnerable in the face of infertility, they are presented with an idealized picture that neglects detail. "The fact is that adoption is a business; babies are priced based on age, race, ethnicity, health, and physical ability." Corruption is rampant, and a failed outcome can be devastating. Riben offers guidelines to avoid being victimized, and recommends a thorough background check of any adoption agent.

Although most adoptions today are considered "open," these words have little legal meaning for a birth mother. Riben quotes the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse (NAIC), "Unless sanctioned by law, agreements for post-adoption contact are purely voluntary and cannot be enforced in court." The promise of open adoption lures expectant mothers to ensure a steady supply of adoptable infants. "The reality is that there is no guarantee that adoption will provide a better life, only a different one."

The author also addresses the plight of those adult adoptees whose records are sealed, and who therefore face considerable obstacles in learning their background. "Adoption records were never sealed to protect mothers who surrender-or those adopted-and do not exist now for their protection." Those who lobby against open records do so on behalf of the brokers, to secure their bottom line. "Maintaining sealed adoption records does not "protect" mothers-or adoptees-from shame; it legitimizes it."

Evelyn Robinson, one of Australia's leading adoption experts, asks in the book's foreword, "What is wrong with adoption in the United States... Greed and consumerism masquerade as altruism, as parents and children are drawn into a quicksand of legal and illegal adoption." She continues, "[Adoption] should be about finding homes for children who are unable to live with their families, after all efforts have been made to keep the family together."

Through comparison with Australian methods, Riben offers a future for American adoption. Payments of all kinds should be eliminated, she says, and objective counseling provided to expectant mothers. Contact between expectant mothers and prospective adopters should be curtailed, and certification of adoption practitioners made mandatory. Penalties for human trafficking would further discourage the brokering of babies.

"The Stork Market" is a compelling and disturbing look at the state of adoption in America. Describing the progress that has already been made, Riben says, "The profit motive and corruption in adoption cannot be mended; it must be ended."

About The Reviewer

Triona Guidry, an adoptee and mother of two, is a freelance writer and consultant.

When I read Mirah Riben's brisk polemic against adoption as we know it in America I found myself internally screaming: How can we make this book required reading for every person considering adoption--both the women who give birth and the people who adopt? For good measure, let's get it to every legislator in this country who doesn't yet understand that the commerce of adoption has not served those for whom it was ostensibly designed: the children.

Perhaps I'm jaded: I'm one of the women still caught in the trap of a closed adoption of the mid-Sixties, when I surrendured a daughter to adoption. Do I feel abused by the system Riben so systematically takes apart? Yes. But our voices are lost in the din of would-be adopters who have delayed conception until their plan to build a family is through the taking of someone else's child--and severing as many ties as possible with the child's natural family and heritage.

Thankfully, Riben exposes this calculating and cruel mind-set--and what it has done to the children--with copious and well-documented research and a clear, engaging writing style. Given today's shortage of American babies available for adoption, Riben's chapters on the international adoption trade are especially revealing and moving. Case studies, statistics, analysis--Riben uses all the tools to make her point and delivers it with the crushing blow of a hammer.

No one who reads this book will come away without thinking that the adoption policies of America need to be re-thought and re-done. Riben, a longtime adoption-reform activist, deserves more attention and credit than I fear she will receive.
Kudoos, Mirah, don't put down your pen!
--Lorraine Dusky, author of "Birthmark" (1979), the first memoir from a birth mother.

Mirah Riben is a passionate voice for adoption reform. She has spent decades researching and writing about how mothers -- often single and without resources -- have been coerced, even forced, into surrendering their children to adoption.

I'm an adoptive mother. I've known my daughter's parents for ten years, and have some appreciation of the pain they're still experiencing over not having been able to raise their child. (And knowing her as a young adult will never make up for this loss.) They should have been able to raise her. They would have been very good parents. Like many single parents during and after the "baby scoop" years, they were made to believe that they had no right to keep their child.

Of course I feel guilt at being party to their pain. But (and I know this is no real excuse) I had also been brainwashed. I knew that, if my sisters or I had become pregnant before marriage, we would have been forced to surrender our babies too. It seemed that that was just the way the world was.

And Mirah Riben is trying to change that world. She's trying to empower single, pregnant young women, and to prevent them from being coerced into giving up their children. I very much hope she succeeds.

From the beginning of state regulated closed records adoption in the early 1930s, state legislatures, social workers, and adoption agencies painted adoption as giving both birth mothers and adoptees a clean slate, a new life, not encumbered by the taint of being labeled a whore, slut, or bastard. As such, what was to become the adoption industry has painted a picture a la a Norman Rockwell painting of an idealized American family where adoption creates a seamless garment that is in the best interest of not only the birth mother and child but also in the best interest of adoptive parents.

However, since the publication of Jean Patton's book, Breaking Silence, in 1954 the rose colored glasses have come off for birth mothers, adoptees, and adoptive parents. At first slowly but with ever increasing awareness and force, birth mothers and adoptees began the painful self-discovery that secrecy in adoption is not in their best interest; in fact, the closed records system of adoption has created generations of both birth mothers and adoptees not simply scared by the experience but traumatized for life. Birth mothers found that they can never forget the child they had been coerced into relinquishing as they had been told they would by their clergy, doctors, and social workers. Adoptees found that even in the happiest of adoptive families they cannot deny feelings of not quite belonging, not quite fitting in, and that there is an empty hole in their lives.

In 1971 Florence Fisher authored, The Search for Anna Fisher and founded the Adoption Liberation Movement Association and in 1975 Emma May Vilardi founded the International Soundex Reunion Registry to facilitate the reunion of birth mothers and adoptees. Also during the 1970 daytime talk shows hosted by Phil Donahue and Merv Griffin began to facilitate reunions and broadcast them on their shows. In 1978 Lee Campbell formed Concerned United Birthparents and was invited to give input into the writing of the Model State Adoption Act which would revolutionize adoption in America by striking down state laws that mandated closed records adoption. Also in 1978 the American Adoption Congress was formed and held the first ever march on Washington to raise public awareness of the problems caused by secrecy in adoption and the need to open adoption records for adult adoptees.

It looked like meaningful reform in adoption law was just a step away. However, such reform was extremely threatening to the multi-billion dollar per year adoption industry comprised of adoption attorneys, social workers, and private adoption agencies. Not only would such reform change the landscape of their cash cow, but it also held the possibility that as birth mothers and adoptees reunited the many unethical, immoral, and illegal practices of adoption attorneys and adoption agencies would come to light resulting in crippling law suits.

Consequently, the National Council for Adoption was formed in 1980 as an industry trade group of adoption attorneys and adoption agencies to both block the Model State Adoption Act from becoming federal law and to prohibit state legislatures from passing open records laws. To provide a philosophical and legal base for both the federal government and state legislatures from passing open records legislation, the Uniform Adoption Act was promoted by the National Council for Adoption and drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State laws in 1990. One key provision of this Act is that if accepted by the federal government or state legislatures it would seal all adoption records for 99 years.

To date neither the federal government nor any state has accepted the Uniform Adoption Act in toto, but the opponents of open adoption records use it as a bully pulpit to convince state legislators not to open adoption records.

In the words of Sherlock Holmes, "The game is now afoot." This game pits the adoption industry represented by special interest groups including the National Council for Adoption, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Associated Catholic Charities, Right to Life groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, and adoption attorneys against the God given and civil rights of birth mothers, adoptees, and adoptive parents to access adoption records that pertain only to them that are currently being held hostage by the states.

This game has produced much heat, little light, and a bellicose cloud of dense smoke that obstructs the true nature and cost of adoption to all parties of the triad.

That is why Mirah Riben's book, The Stork Market: America's multi-billion dollar unregulated adoption industry is such an important contribution to the field. Ms. Riben's research is impeccable and her writing style clear and cogent.

In a few short chapters Ms. Ribin deconstructs the myth of the happy birth mother and happy adoptee and replaces it with the cold reality of an activist industry out of control that has lost sight of the fact that adoption must be in the best interest of the child or it becomes an unethical, immoral, and sometimes illegal act. In doing so Ms. Riben covers all of the pertinent bases: the history of adoption reform; the unethical, immoral, and sometimes illegal practice of adoption attorneys and agencies; the issue of birth mother and adoptee rights; the nature of parenthood and family; the parameters of international adoption; and the increasingly important question of father's rights.

Ms. Riben also includes documentary notes and an index as well as a conclusion that considers goals regarding how the existing system of adoption can be fixed.

The Stork Market: America's multi-billion dollar unregulated adoption industry is a well researched and well written book that in the words of the late Howard Cossell, "Tells it like it is." It is noteworthy that Ms. Riben "tells it like it is" without the histrionics and ax grinding so often found in books of this genre. Rather, like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, she pulls back the veneer of the warm fuzzies of the social institution of adoption to expose the rot at its core perpetrated by the adoption industry.

I highly recommend The Stork Factory: America's multi-billion dollar unregulated adoption industry to all members of the adoption triad, state legislators, and the general public. With one out of three American families touched by adoption, this book is a must read for any thinking person interested in the truth of adoption.

About the Reviewer:

Msgr. John W. Sweeley, Th.D. is an adoptee and father of three adopted sons. He is a life member of Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization and a member of the Executive Committee of Massachusetts Access Rights To All.

"The Stork Market" is a must read for those considering adoption or surrendering a child for adoption; and for public policy makers.

Adoption is usually thought of as a positive event - finding a family for an unwanted child; helping a woman go on with her life without a burden she cannot bear.

In fact, adoption has become a total distortion of the intended purpose of finding homes for orphaned children. It is a multi-billion dollar unregulated business which exploits mothers and commodifies children.

The demand for adoptable children - particularly healthy white infants -- far exceeds the supply. Couples and singles desperate to be parents pay thousands of dollars for the babies that become available. Meanwhile American children who need homes are languishing in foster care.

"The Stork Market" leads us through the seamy side of adoption: Trusting couples desiring a child scammed of thousands of dollars. Women convinced to travel across country to deliver a child in a state "friendly" to adoption. Women required to pay thousands of dollars because they did not turn over the "goods." Men denied their paternal rights by convoluted laws requiring them to sign up on "putative father registries." Poor children in Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America kidnapped and smuggled into the United States.

And its not just prospective adoptive parents and natural parents who suffer. Adoption cuts children off from blood relatives and denies them the right to know their origins. Unscrupulous adoption practioners place children with anyone who can pay their fees. Sadistic adopters abuse - even murder - children entrusted to them.

Riben not only exposes the problems but offers common-sense solutions. Mothers should be made aware of their options. They should have sufficient time to consider and re-consider their decision. Fathers should have actual notice of the birth of their child and the pending adoption so that they can assert their rights. International adoption should be curtailed and resources made available to poor women to allow them to raise their children. Adoption agencies should be licensed and regulated. Private adoptions conducted by "facilitators," attorneys, doctors, and others should be outlawed.

Finally Riben recommends that adoption - cutting off all legal ties between the child and his original family -- be replaced with guardianship-like arrangement. Adoptive parents would have custody but the child would retain a relationship with the original family.

This is an amazing expose that shines a bright light on the current state of adoption in the US. It is an inconvenient truth, but one we must all open our eyes to to prevent the further abuses that are so prevalent in the current system.

Somewhere along the way adoption changed from finding families for needy children to finding children for childless parents. Adoption is not an entitlement nor is it a cure for infertility. As Joss Shawyar said in 1989 "Women can and must stop putting in orders for other women's children".[1] Think about that.

Adoption practices are based on the social mores of the 30s and 40s and are not only antiquated, but harmful. The current practice of lies and sealed secrets in adoption, of sealed original birth certificates and falsified 'amended' birth certificates for adoptess (oh yes, that is exactly what happens) is a violation of human and civil rights. Alabama, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon and Tennessee give adoptees some form of access to their original (unfalsified) birth certificates. In Kansas adoption records were never sealed. Illinois is in transition to allowing access and efforts are moving forward in many other states. [2]

Adoption is an unregulated industry and as such there are many abuses going on. There is massive corruption too. It exploits birth mothers and adoptive parents and commodifies babies and children. It has become a big business serving only the bottom of line of those who profit from it. The current practice of profiteering on misery has to end.

When I started the book I couldn't put it down. The forward with the details about Australia is a wonderfully informative introduction - I wish this information could be publicized from the rooftops so others can become aware that there is a more humane way. That people are not outraged is beyond me, but this is because people don't know about what is really going on. Hopefully they will read this book and learn about what is really happening. Adoption is not practiced this way in ALL other western countries - elsewhere things are much more people, less profit, focused than here.

This book is a must-read to open your eyes to the shocking truth of what really is going on. Please read this book to be informed and help support needed positive change.

[1] p xiii, foreword by Evelyn Robinson, MA, Dipl. Ed, BSW, 2006
[2] American Adoption Congress state legislation status

This book should be required reading for all who are considering adoption. Prospective adopters need to understand the role they play in perpetuating the abuses on mothers and children. It isnt all wine and roses and damage is done to many - for generations.

Mirah has done an amazing job clearly articulating the abuses and the problems that exist in the American adoption industry. As someone who lost her first born to a baby broker (page 77-78 in the book), I can attest that all that Mirah states is spot on.

BOOK REVIEW: THE STORK MARKET [1]

Reviewed by Erik L. Smith [2]

The Stork Market is an expose on the United States adoption industry, and is a must-read. The book motivates adoption reform by educating the public about the true, and often unspoken, intents, motives, and policies driving adoption in the United States. Stork Market leaves few if any stones unturned, covering the history of adoption, cultural myths surrounding "motherhood," corruption, international adoption, victimization of natural and adoptive parents, natural fathers, and alternatives for social policy. Stork Market essentially discusses "What is wrong with adoption in the United States." [3]

Stork Market is subtitled "America's multi-billion dollar unregulated adoption industry." But adoption in the United States is not unregulated. It simply is not regulated in the way, and perhaps sometimes to the extent, that the author would like. For example, Stork Market compares U.S. adoption policy to that of Australia, [4] lauding Australia's model of non-commercialism and openness. Clearly, that describes policy more than degree of regulation--though admittedly policy and regulation overlap.

Stork Market also suffers from inconsistent citation. Some of Stork Market's key passages and claims are diligently cited, while other passages and claims remain vague and unsubstantiated. For example, a discussion of an Oregon open records law ends with, "Critics admit that [the law] has been successful." [5] That claim needs backing up. But no reference is given for it. Otherwise, there do not appear any real mistruths in Stork Market.

You will likely not read Stork Market linearly, but will skip around to various sections according to your own interests and priorities, eventually reading it all. What makes Stork Market a must-read for everyone is the breadth of issues it covers and its basic truth about them. Stork Market gives the reader the whole picture. The book was long overdue. No one can come away from reading Stork Market without being far more educated about an negative aspect of our society that has remained cloaked in flashy cultural wrapping for far too long.

[1] Riben, Mirah. Advocate Publications. 2007. 260 pgs.
[2] M.A. Psychology; Certified Paralegal, Columbus, Ohio.
[3] First page of the Foreword, by Evelyn Robinson.
[4] Chap. 10, Pgs. 198 - 207.
[5] Pg. 147.

Note: This review recently appeared in the American Adoption Congress "Decree"

I would be lying if I said I enjoyed The Stork Market. It is not an easy read, no matter what adoption perspective you're coming from. I found myself gasping, squirming, and shaking my head in disbelief as often as I nodded in agreement. Yet, I was drawn in and compelled to keep reading, no matter how disconcerting.

The Stork Market provides an important perspective on adoption as it exists today. Not unlike Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth -- another discomforting read, but nonetheless an important addition to our base of knowledge and the means to get us thinking about where we should go from here. Along with the works of Rickie Sollinger (Wake Up Little Susie and Beggars and Choosers) and Adam Pertman (Adoption Nation) -- and I found The Stork Market more accessible -- it is a must-read for every mother who is considering surrendering a child, every couple seeking to adopt, and every adoption professional and legislator in the United States.

Riben provides a concise, well researched and documented history of current adoption practices, including the lack of regulations for agencies and facilitators in 47 of our 50 states (i.e., no requirements for training, licensing and reporting), transgressions committed against both natural mothers and adopting parents (including recognizable names like Georgia Tann and Seymour Kurtz), international adoption policies which vary by country, the lack of enforcement of open adoption agreements, trends toward rushing mothers into the decision to surrender, safe havens, foster care, and sealed records.

She (along with Evelyn Robinson, a social worker, author and speaker on the long-term outcomes of adoption separation, who has lived and worked in Australia since 1982 and wrote the book's foreword) cites Australia's Children's Protection Act of 1993, an adoption alternative model based on the best interests of children. In part, it makes private adoption illegal, bans commercial adoption agencies and payments of any kind connected to adoptions, encourages and supports expectant mothers in raising their children, requires counseling after birth at least three days prior to consent for adoption, prohibits consent for adoption until the child is at least fourteen days old, and includes the names of both the natural and adoptive parents on the birth/adoption certificate.

As revered as adoption has become in our country, facing injustices that have been and continue to be perpetrated by the adoption industry, where the demand for children has become the driving force, can be a bitter pill to swallow. As the author of this book wrote: "Adoption is a very personally and emotionally charged issue for those touched by it. Few can think about or discuss it without passion. For that reason, this may be a difficult or painful book for some to read. It may make you sad, it may shock you, or it may make you angry. But it is for just these reasons that you might need to read it."

We don't want to give up our cars, our fireplaces, beef, and cell phones, even though Al Gore and other environmentalists insist that we must in order save the planet. Likewise, infertile couples don't want to give up the chance to build a family. Those who have adopted, or hope to, may find the book difficult to digest. I submit that the same is true of birthmothers and even adoptees struggling with whether adoption was in their best interest.

Adoption isn't going away any time soon. But I agree with Riben that our focus has to shift back from recruiting mothers and finding children to meet the needs of prospective adoptive parents to the original intent of adoption: to provide homes for children who might not otherwise have one. Her conclusion (a view shared by Origins-USA, on whose board of directors she serves) is that family preservation is the answer -- with kinship adoption and legal guardianship as alternatives to adoption by strangers, the end to amended birth certificates, enforcement of open adoption agreements, and a greater focus on finding families for older children in foster care as opposed to "blank slate" infants.

Indeed a lofty goal. But after reading The Stork Market, I believe it is an aim worthy of our consideration and effort. Kind of like world peace.