It's not what it sounds like, and it doesn't have tax consequences:
Embryo Exchanges and Adoption Tax Credits by
Sarah B. Lawsky and Naomi Cahn
Abstract: The “Option of Adoption Act,” a Georgia law that was introduced by a staunchly anti-abortion Georgia state representative, establishes procedures for genetic donors to relinquish their rights to embryos before birth and permits, but does not require, embryo recipients to petition a court for recognition that they are the legal parents of a child born to them as a result of an embryo transfer. This article clears up what seems to be widespread confusion about a fairly straightforward question of tax law related to such embryo “adoptions.” Notwithstanding various sources' claims to the contrary, neither a Georgia adoption tax credit nor a federal adoption tax credit is available for “adopting” an embryo.
Showing posts with label adoption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adoption. Show all posts
Friday, March 5, 2010
Matching for adoption
"In most cases, a successful domestic adoption is the result of a match between a birth mother (BMO hereafter) who seeks to relinquish her child, and prospective adoptive parents (PAPs hereafter). The underlying matching process involves a bilateral search characterized by several layers of mediation: Typically, adoption agencies represent BMOs, while PAPs work vis-à-vis adoption agencies, lawyers, or facilitators. In this paper, we exploit the unique nature of a new data set documenting the operations of an adoption facilitator. We analyze the preferences of PAPs over the attributes of babies relinquished for adoption, the BMOs’ choices, and the factors that determine ultimate outcomes (i.e., a successful adoption, a decision to parent by the BMO, or the child’s placement in foster care).
That is from the paper Gender and Racial Biases: Evidence from Child Adoption, by Mariagiovanna Baccara , Allan Collard-Wexler, Leonardo Felli , and Leeat Yariv.
The paper has a market design aspect:
"Despite the social value of a well-functioning matching process that delivers suitable parents to every child, adoption has not received much attention by the economics literature. Our analysis of parents’ preferences, combined with the identification of factors facilitating an ultimate match, opens the door to policy interventions aimed at increasing the efficiency of this process."
That is from the paper Gender and Racial Biases: Evidence from Child Adoption, by Mariagiovanna Baccara , Allan Collard-Wexler, Leonardo Felli , and Leeat Yariv.
The paper has a market design aspect:
"Despite the social value of a well-functioning matching process that delivers suitable parents to every child, adoption has not received much attention by the economics literature. Our analysis of parents’ preferences, combined with the identification of factors facilitating an ultimate match, opens the door to policy interventions aimed at increasing the efficiency of this process."
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Same sex marriage in Mexico City: starting today
Gay Marriage Puts Mexico City at Center of Debate : "A new Mexico City law goes into effect March 4 that will allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, propelling the city to the forefront of the global gay rights movement."
The law seems to have survived the expected judicial challenge: Mexico's Supreme Court Upholds Gay Marriage Law , and here's a nice story about the (ongoing) debate in yesterday's Washington Post, With same-sex marriage law, Mexico City becomes battleground in culture wars
Here are my other posts on same sex marriage, which strikes me as an excellent example of how views and laws can change regarding repugnant transactions.
The law seems to have survived the expected judicial challenge: Mexico's Supreme Court Upholds Gay Marriage Law , and here's a nice story about the (ongoing) debate in yesterday's Washington Post, With same-sex marriage law, Mexico City becomes battleground in culture wars
Here are my other posts on same sex marriage, which strikes me as an excellent example of how views and laws can change regarding repugnant transactions.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Law and economics of repugnant markets
Kimberly Krawiec at The Faculty Lounge, some time ago followed up on one of my posts with an interesting one of her own: Selecting for Sex: US entrepreneurship in the baby market
She is a professor at Duke Law, and a scholar of repugnant markets, often analysing them with respect to rent seeking behavior. See e.g.
Altruism and Intermediation in the Market for Babies, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 203 (2009).
Abstract: Central to every legal system is the principle that certain items are off-limits to commercial exchange. In theory, babies are one such sacred object. This supposed ban on baby selling has been lamented by those who view commercial markets as the most efficient means of allocating resources, and defended by those who contend that commercial markets in parental rights commodify human beings, compromise individual dignity, or jeopardize fundamental values. However, the supposed and much-discussed baby selling ban does not, and is not intended to, eliminate commercial transactions in children. Instead, it is an asymmetric legal restriction that limits the ability of baby market suppliers to share in the full profits generated by their reproductive labor, insisting instead that they derive a large portion of their compensation from the utility associated with altruistic donation. Meanwhile, a wide range of baby market intermediaries profit handsomely in the baby market, without similar restrictions on their market activities. Baby selling "bans" thus have more in common with the rent-seeking by powerful marketplace actors seen in other commercial markets than with normative statements about the sanctity of human life. The author concludes with a call for the removal of the last vestiges of the "ban" against baby selling and other laws that diminish the capacity of baby market suppliers to access the marketplace.
Price and Pretense in the Baby Market, in BABY MARKETS: MONEY, MORALS, AND THE NEOPOLITICS OF CHOICE (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2009).
Show Me the Money: Making Markets in Forbidden Exchange, 72 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. (2009).
Sunny Samaritans and Egomaniacs: Price-Fixing in the Gamete Market, 72 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS._ (2009).
Abstract: This Article considers the market structure of the human egg (or “oocyte”) donation business, particularly the presence of anti-competitive behavior by the fertility industry, including horizontal price-fixing of the type long considered per se illegal in other industries. The Article explores why this attempted collusion has failed to generate the same public and regulatory concern prompted by similar behavior in other industries, arguing that the persistent dialogue of gift-giving and altruistic donation obscures both the highly commercial nature of egg “donation” and the benefits to the fertility industry of controlling the price of a necessary input into many fertility services – namely, eggs. A comparison to the egg market’s closest cousin – the sperm market – does not reveal similar collusive attempts to depress the price of sperm. A further analysis of the industry explores potential reasons for this difference.
The last two articles appear in an edited online journal volume by Professor Krawiec, called Show Me the Money: Making Markets in Forbidden Exchange, which has articles on the sale of blood, organs, eggs and sperm, labor, and surrogate wombs: here's her blog post summarizing them.
She is a professor at Duke Law, and a scholar of repugnant markets, often analysing them with respect to rent seeking behavior. See e.g.
Altruism and Intermediation in the Market for Babies, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 203 (2009).
Abstract: Central to every legal system is the principle that certain items are off-limits to commercial exchange. In theory, babies are one such sacred object. This supposed ban on baby selling has been lamented by those who view commercial markets as the most efficient means of allocating resources, and defended by those who contend that commercial markets in parental rights commodify human beings, compromise individual dignity, or jeopardize fundamental values. However, the supposed and much-discussed baby selling ban does not, and is not intended to, eliminate commercial transactions in children. Instead, it is an asymmetric legal restriction that limits the ability of baby market suppliers to share in the full profits generated by their reproductive labor, insisting instead that they derive a large portion of their compensation from the utility associated with altruistic donation. Meanwhile, a wide range of baby market intermediaries profit handsomely in the baby market, without similar restrictions on their market activities. Baby selling "bans" thus have more in common with the rent-seeking by powerful marketplace actors seen in other commercial markets than with normative statements about the sanctity of human life. The author concludes with a call for the removal of the last vestiges of the "ban" against baby selling and other laws that diminish the capacity of baby market suppliers to access the marketplace.
Price and Pretense in the Baby Market, in BABY MARKETS: MONEY, MORALS, AND THE NEOPOLITICS OF CHOICE (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2009).
Show Me the Money: Making Markets in Forbidden Exchange, 72 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. (2009).
Sunny Samaritans and Egomaniacs: Price-Fixing in the Gamete Market, 72 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS._ (2009).
Abstract: This Article considers the market structure of the human egg (or “oocyte”) donation business, particularly the presence of anti-competitive behavior by the fertility industry, including horizontal price-fixing of the type long considered per se illegal in other industries. The Article explores why this attempted collusion has failed to generate the same public and regulatory concern prompted by similar behavior in other industries, arguing that the persistent dialogue of gift-giving and altruistic donation obscures both the highly commercial nature of egg “donation” and the benefits to the fertility industry of controlling the price of a necessary input into many fertility services – namely, eggs. A comparison to the egg market’s closest cousin – the sperm market – does not reveal similar collusive attempts to depress the price of sperm. A further analysis of the industry explores potential reasons for this difference.
The last two articles appear in an edited online journal volume by Professor Krawiec, called Show Me the Money: Making Markets in Forbidden Exchange, which has articles on the sale of blood, organs, eggs and sperm, labor, and surrogate wombs: here's her blog post summarizing them.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Even adoption is sometimes viewed as repugnant
Sometimes even the adoption of a child strikes some people as a repugnant transaction that should be prevented. The recent case of the singer Madonna, in Malawi to adopt a second child, is an example. But the http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/nabsw.org/resource/collection/E1582D77-E4CD-4104-996A-D42D08F9CA7D/NABSW_Trans-Racial_Adoption_1972_Position_(b).pdfsame point of view surfaces sometimes in the U.S.
The Ethicist column in the NY Times describes the issue: Madonna and Child "There is a creepy evocation of colonialism when a rich American or European swoops into a poor African nation and grabs a child, as if the country were a baby plantation. Critics charge that the adoptive parents benefit from the persistence of poverty. They do, but in much the same way as Lenny Bruce described the modus operandi of Jonas Salk, J. Edgar Hoover and himself: “These men thrive upon the continuance of disease, segregation and violence.” That is, they respond to but do not promote human misery. (O.K., except for Hoover.) "
In the end, a court approved the adoption, reversing a lower court.
Malawi court approves Madonna's adoption of Mercy
"Madonna has succeeded in her attempt to adopt a second child from Malawi after an appeal court overrode residency demands and ruled that “every child has the right to love”.
The decision by the African state’s highest court means the singer could take four-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James to New York within days.
But it will do nothing to silence complaints that Madonna has used her wealth and celebrity to bypass the country’s laws."
...
"Madonna’s application to adopt Chifundo was initially rejected by a lower court in April because the singer is not resident in Malawi, and because a judge decided that the young girl would fare perfectly well in the orphanage where she has lived. " (emphasis added)
...
"But at Malawi’s Supreme Court of Appeal yesterday a panel of three judges said that the singer’s commitment to helping disadvantaged children should have been taken into account. Madonna has founded a charity, Raising Malawi, for orphans there.
They also argued that the residency disqualification was a narrow interpretation of largely outdated laws.
...
"The Human Rights Consultative Committee said it fears that the ruling has opened up the country’s vulnerable children to trafficking. "
Notice that the initial Malawi judge found the adoption so repugnant that he preferred to leave the child in an orphanage. (I doubt that even in Malawi the judge thought the child would be better off in the orphanage than in a family; rather his feeling must have been that something about the adoption was so repugnant that Malawians should be willing to have the child bear this cost.)
This kind of repugnance, with children bearing the cost, is found not only in the developing world. In the US, the National Association of Black Social Workers is also well known for its opposition to transracial adoption. (Here's an updated link to their September 1972 Position Statement on Trans-Racial Adoptions.) Until relatively recently, this opposition led to adoption practices in the U.S. that discouraged interracial adoption, and often prevented minority children from finding permanent adoptive families. This began to change only with legislation in the 1990's: see
A Guide to The Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 As Amended by the Interethnic Adoption Provisions of 1996
"The Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) was enacted in 1994 amid spirited and sometimes contentious debate about transracial adoption and same-race placement policies. At the heart of this debate is a desire to promote the best interests of children by ensuring that they have permanent, safe, stable, and loving homes that will meet their individual needs. This desire is thwarted by the persistent increases in the number of children within the child protective system waiting for, but often not being placed in, adoptive families. Of particular concern are the African American and other minority children who are dramatically over-represented at all stages of this system, wait far longer than Caucasian children for adoption, and are at far greater risk of never experiencing a permanent home. Among the many factors that contribute to placement delays and denials, Congress found that the most salient are racial and ethnic matching policies and the practices of public agencies which have historically discouraged individuals from minority communities from becoming foster or adoptive parents. MEPA addressed these concerns by prohibiting the use of a child's or a prospective parent's race, color, or national origin to delay or deny the child's placement and by requiring diligent efforts to expand the number of racially and ethnically diverse foster and adoptive parents."
The Ethicist column in the NY Times describes the issue: Madonna and Child "There is a creepy evocation of colonialism when a rich American or European swoops into a poor African nation and grabs a child, as if the country were a baby plantation. Critics charge that the adoptive parents benefit from the persistence of poverty. They do, but in much the same way as Lenny Bruce described the modus operandi of Jonas Salk, J. Edgar Hoover and himself: “These men thrive upon the continuance of disease, segregation and violence.” That is, they respond to but do not promote human misery. (O.K., except for Hoover.) "
In the end, a court approved the adoption, reversing a lower court.
Malawi court approves Madonna's adoption of Mercy
"Madonna has succeeded in her attempt to adopt a second child from Malawi after an appeal court overrode residency demands and ruled that “every child has the right to love”.
The decision by the African state’s highest court means the singer could take four-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James to New York within days.
But it will do nothing to silence complaints that Madonna has used her wealth and celebrity to bypass the country’s laws."
...
"Madonna’s application to adopt Chifundo was initially rejected by a lower court in April because the singer is not resident in Malawi, and because a judge decided that the young girl would fare perfectly well in the orphanage where she has lived. " (emphasis added)
...
"But at Malawi’s Supreme Court of Appeal yesterday a panel of three judges said that the singer’s commitment to helping disadvantaged children should have been taken into account. Madonna has founded a charity, Raising Malawi, for orphans there.
They also argued that the residency disqualification was a narrow interpretation of largely outdated laws.
...
"The Human Rights Consultative Committee said it fears that the ruling has opened up the country’s vulnerable children to trafficking. "
Notice that the initial Malawi judge found the adoption so repugnant that he preferred to leave the child in an orphanage. (I doubt that even in Malawi the judge thought the child would be better off in the orphanage than in a family; rather his feeling must have been that something about the adoption was so repugnant that Malawians should be willing to have the child bear this cost.)
This kind of repugnance, with children bearing the cost, is found not only in the developing world. In the US, the National Association of Black Social Workers is also well known for its opposition to transracial adoption. (Here's an updated link to their September 1972 Position Statement on Trans-Racial Adoptions.) Until relatively recently, this opposition led to adoption practices in the U.S. that discouraged interracial adoption, and often prevented minority children from finding permanent adoptive families. This began to change only with legislation in the 1990's: see
A Guide to The Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 As Amended by the Interethnic Adoption Provisions of 1996
"The Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) was enacted in 1994 amid spirited and sometimes contentious debate about transracial adoption and same-race placement policies. At the heart of this debate is a desire to promote the best interests of children by ensuring that they have permanent, safe, stable, and loving homes that will meet their individual needs. This desire is thwarted by the persistent increases in the number of children within the child protective system waiting for, but often not being placed in, adoptive families. Of particular concern are the African American and other minority children who are dramatically over-represented at all stages of this system, wait far longer than Caucasian children for adoption, and are at far greater risk of never experiencing a permanent home. Among the many factors that contribute to placement delays and denials, Congress found that the most salient are racial and ethnic matching policies and the practices of public agencies which have historically discouraged individuals from minority communities from becoming foster or adoptive parents. MEPA addressed these concerns by prohibiting the use of a child's or a prospective parent's race, color, or national origin to delay or deny the child's placement and by requiring diligent efforts to expand the number of racially and ethnically diverse foster and adoptive parents."
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Adoption in Korea
Korea Aims to End Stigma of Adoption and Stop ‘Exporting’ Babies
"Daunted by the stigma surrounding adoption here, Cho Joong-bae and Kim In-soon delayed expanding their family for years. When they finally did six years ago, Mr. Cho chose to tell his elderly parents that the child was the result of an affair, rather than admit she was adopted."
"Daunted by the stigma surrounding adoption here, Cho Joong-bae and Kim In-soon delayed expanding their family for years. When they finally did six years ago, Mr. Cho chose to tell his elderly parents that the child was the result of an affair, rather than admit she was adopted."
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