Private Adoption Price in Vermont: $8,000-$12,000 : Couples Seek Babies in Newspaper Ads

The classified ads are usually from well-off couples in the metropolitan New York or Boston areas. The ads say that the couple will offer “love, security, all material advantages.”

Wanted: a “white newborn.”

The price: $8,000 to $12,000.

A recent increase in such advertisements in Vermont newspapers has state adoption officials wondering how widespread the practice is and concerned about a lack of safeguards.

“This is a new phenomena,” said Jeffery Johnson, director of Vermont Children’s Aid Society, the largest nonprofit child welfare program in the state. “I have never seen this many ads before here in the state.”

Within Two Years

“We have become aware of them within the last two years,” said Maureen Thompson, head of the state’s adoption services. “But there have been a whole lot of them lately.”

Fifteen personal ads for adoptions were placed in Sunday editions of the Burlington Free Press and the Sunday Rutland Herald-Times Argus.

The increase is a result of difficulty in adopting children in metropolitan areas, Thompson said. “Since there are so very few healthy infants available, they have to search farther away. They have to advertise as far away as Vermont.”

In Vermont, where private adoptions are legal, social workers call the process the “gray market” because the money paid to a mother who places her child for adoption is much less than in other states.

In those areas, the high cost has created a “black market.”

Illegal Cost Higher

Adoption officials and a New York woman seeking to adopt a child through a classified advertisement say that the price of private adoption in Vermont is between $8,000 and $12,000. In New York or New Jersey, where it is illegal, it can cost $20,000.

In 1984, there were about 300 adoptions in Vermont. Johnson believes that about 100 of those adoptions were private, including many who used newspaper ads.

A Hicksville, N.Y., woman, who would not give her name in a telephone interview, said she and her husband have placed a classified ad in Vermont newspapers for the last two months.

“I would say it is impossible to go through an agency,” she said. “You have to wait years.”

She said she and her husband successfully adopted a girl two years ago through a newspaper ad. She would not say where her adopted daughter was from.

‘Love and Security’

Her ad is typical: “Happily married couple with much love and security to give desires to adopt white newborn. Confidential. Call collect.”

Other ads report of the “advantages of warm, loving, secure home,” or “all material advantages available.”

Thompson said she is not opposed to the ads because “I am not aware of any horrible situations . . . but many people do have problems.”

Johnson, on the other hand, said: “It raises some issues. We’re talking about children. I am concerned about the processes involved, the risk involved for children and the families. The controls are not very strong.”

Must Be Reported

Under state law, if a child is adopted by a family outside Vermont, the case must be reported to the state. If the adoption occurs between two Vermont parties, court action is required, but state officials do not have to be notified.