March 2, 2001

5:39 PM

Who do you root for when everyone's a villain?It turns out that everyone involved in the "Internet Twins" fiasco is scum. Sure as hell the biological mother is (she gave the babies up twice and now wants them back; I wouldn't trust her to care for my cat); the woman from the UK is, and now the man in the US is. A plague on all their houses.

Now the biological father, Aaron Wecker, has begun proceedings to gain custody of the babies. I hope he isn't as despicable as everyone else involved. Let's hope this circus doesn't follow the girls around for the rest of their lives. If there's any sort of lesson in this, I wish someone would tell me what it is.
posted by Steven Den Beste (4 comments total)

Maybe the lesson here is that children should not be treated as commodities. Private adoption has always given me a severe case of the willies. I know that there are a lot of deserving childless couples out there, but children shouldn't be conceived out of greed (I'm not aware whether that was the case in this instance). In cases where a woman finds herself pregnant and unable to care for a child, then the child's interests should be paramount. I think that means that someone has to decide where the child is placed, but that someone should not be anyone with a financial interest. I don't know what mechanism I'd use to regulate the situation, but children are not property, so they should not, by default, go to the highest bidder.
posted by anapestic at 6:58 PM on March 2, 2001

It should be a matter of law (International) that:

In matters of adoption , no money should ever change
hands , for any reason , whatsoever .

Same for organ transplants .
posted by ojsbuddy at 10:08 PM on March 2, 2001

I'm all for these restrictions on adoption, especially the probational period, as long as you apply it to people who give birth to their own kids too, preferably before they conceive.
posted by kindall at 1:13 AM on March 3, 2001