I can see it now: Third Trimester Blowout Sale (no pun intended)! We’ll beat any advertised price!

Yes, I propose selling babies.

(Homer is imitating a sperm cell)

Marge: Did you have to be so graphic?
Homer: It’s okay, Marge. They pave the way for this kind of filth in school.
Dr. Hibbert: Well, you know, a healthy baby can bring upwards of $60,000.

Marge: What?
Dr. Hibbert: Well, of course, that was just a test. Err, had you
reacted differently, you’d be in jail right now. Simply a test…

There is a significant sentiment among libertarians that the “shortage” of organs available for transplant is due to the imposition of unnecessary price-ceilings (namely: $0), which prevents the market from clearing at a level anywhere near optimal. What about babies for adoption? People pay outrageous sums of money to adopt children from backwards, third-world countries. Wouldn’t it be better if Mr & Mrs Smith could put an ad in the local paper, to purchase the services of a child-bearing woman. They could determine what would be reasonable compensation, provide for the pre-natal care and insurance, etc.

To be quite clear: I don’t mean tendering an offer for the adorable tyke you saw in the park yesterday. That would be repugnant. I’m not OK with selling 8-year olds. Primarly, I’m concerned with the potential for a woman to effectively “rent” the space in her uterus to gestate someone else’s child. Rather more appropriately, a pre-natal adoption. If there are women willing to give their babies for adoption, and there are couples willing to buy them – what interest do we have in preventing this transaction, especially when one of the sub-perfect outcomes is abortion? There might well be a diminution in the number of abortions if the women who would otherwise resort to that practice were instead compensated for bearing a child by proxy for another couple.

There are certainly many people who face the challenge of unwanted pregnancy the ability to arrange this sort of adoption confers obvious benefit when compared to any alternative. Nobody benefits from abortions. On the contrary, the adoptive parents, the grantor, and the child ALL benefit from my proposed arrangement.