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Discussion of Controversial Topics in Philosophy and Analysis of Famous Philosophers and Their Ideas
By far the most interesting and intriguing topic that I have learned about in philosophy class this semester is Richard Posner’s essay on selling babies. The idea at first is quite astonishing and unthinkable. The act of selling a baby to another person. Simply unheard of and illegal in today’s society. However I found Posner’s essay interesting and intriguing, if not amusing. While he only touches upon the issue of selling babies from a purely economic standpoint, he does make a convincing case for it. I agree with Posner that babies should be allowed to be sold to a buyer. Regulation of selling babies would prevent babies from being sold illegally on the black market. In addition, I agree that time is an important economic factor as some people might not want to burden of having to carry a baby for most of a year in order to have a child. Some mothers might find it easier to adopt, or in Posner’s case, buy a baby instead. Continuing to explore the economic factors regarding buying and selling of babies, Posner posits that it could help the poor by giving them another option to have an income and earn money. However, I have serious doubts about this. Firstly, it costs a lot of money to maintain a baby for about 9 months in a year. Health care becomes a huge cost. Also, by being pregnant most of a year, the woman carrying that baby is unable to perform most types of job functions, thereby rendering her labor useless for most of a year, and without an income to support her. There is also an issue of if there will be a sufficient demand and large enough market to guarantee that she will make money off of selling her baby. If there are not enough buyers to potentially buy her baby, the woman is stuck with it and cannot make an income. In fact this would yield a negative loss instead of a profit as a result. Posner posits that the quality of babies would increase. That may be true but just because there is an increased quality of babies due to a higher quantity of babies doesn’t mean that all or even most of those babies will be bought by someone. Those babies are then stuck in an orphanage system that isn’t very good and have a low quality of life. Just because the supply of babies might go up because the selling of babies would be legalized does not mean that the demand would increase too. Currently, there are still plenty of normal children who are left to be orphaned and are never adopted, without even considering a handicapped or ethnic minority child who has an even smaller chance of being adopted in today’s world.

From a moral standpoint, you are playing around with another human beings life. Once a baby is born and abortion can no longer occur to get rid of that potential baby, that baby is almost ensured of a poor quality of life. Either they will be orphaned with little chance of ever being adopted, leading to a possible life of crime and drugs, or the mother will hold onto the baby, and might or might not ever love the baby since it was not supposed to be her child in the first place.

Finally I found it interesting the restrictions that Posner put on the market of selling babies such as being unable to return a baby once it has been purchased and no screening on potential parents. I agree on his limitations in his proposal and they seem to make common sense. It is almost impossible to predict a parent who will become abusive or who won’t be a good parent to their baby. Also, being unable to return a baby makes it seem as if the parent has to make a hard decision to buy that baby and if they really want to raise a child. It’s not something that they can merely return if they don’t like their purchase.

When compared to the other options, I don't have a problem with it. As long as the buyers are screened the same way they are for adoption, To make sure they will be somewhat decent parents. Beats fighting hippy picketers at a clinic or throwing a kid into the foster system, which can create the feeling that no one wants them, and usually does more harm to the kid than good.

No man, wtf?

I support the selling of babies as long as: the seller isn't producing said babies purely to profit, and the buyer isn't unfit/whacko.

We buy and sell domestic animals, why not little persons?

This sounds a lot like A Modest Proposal, merely tweaked a bit.

Am I the only one who thinks of the commercial in GTA IV for "baby in a box overnight dot com"?

Originally Posted by AelyaS

This sounds a lot like A Modest Proposal, merely tweaked a bit.

I was thinking the same thing. But isn't a Modest Proposal supposed to be satire?

Allowing the selling of babies is just going down a VERY VERY VERY slippery slope.
It'll lead to things like... extreme prostitution, people exploiting this (especially the types of people who really shouldnt be pro-creating), an increase in the rate of world population growth because people will care and think even less about having a child, and other ridiculous stuff.
This is almost like bordering onto cloning/genetically modifying babies.
And also, you're de-humanizing human life and assigning a monetary value to it. There will be like, eBaby. Thats just screwed up and twisted no matter how you try and spin it.

Long story short, hell no. wth man?!

If you really can't take care of the baby then give it to adoption, but don't make some money off it. The child might have some more emotional problems when he/she finds out that not only are his/her parents not his/her but that he/she is exactly worth $717 or something.

This is another example of society getting rid of responsibility, same league, imo, as that black school they were thinking about in Toronto - let's change the standards instead of fixing an actual issue.

Watch five minutes of Jerry Springer, Judge Joe Brown or Judge Judy to see what I mean.

This gives people an incentive to make children they really are not prepared for, puts a barrier to otherwise wonderful parents who can't afford it, and reduces a child to a dollar sign. Seems it loses on all fronts.

If you cant take care of the baby, then you shouldnt be having one in the first place.
This will just make people who shouldnt be having babies (cuz they cant take care of them) care even less about having a baby.

I don't think it's a great idea cause then we'll have retards producing more babies than the market has demand for, thus creating more messed up people with shitty lives that shouldn't have existed to begin with (same thing happens when abortions are disallowed). The world has got more than enough people as it is.

On that note, I for one welcome the idea of robbing aborted fetuses of stem cells. Don't think I give a damn about the humanity/liberal viewpoints of the aforementioned idea :p.

I don't consider a fetus any different from a plant till like the 2.5 - 3rd trimester. I just lol when I see people protesting abortion with pictures of aborted fetuses on the street.

Like hurrrr what did you think I thought it looked like?

I see nothing wrong with taking stem cells from aborted fetuses either - as long as they were not expressly produced for that purpose and the couple receives no reward/incentive for it.

But then again I'm in science

Originally Posted by britb

...as long as they were not expressly produced for that purpose...

I don't even see a problem with that really. The only thing holding people back is that it seems kinda ****ed up on a moral level.

If we're willing to do the exact same thing with animals, I don't see why there is anything wrong with doing it with humans.

If you're growing a fetus in a test tube, and you kill it before it got anywhere even close to being complex enough to contemplate it's own existence.... I don't see how that's any different from killing a dandelion.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

I don't even see a problem with that really. The only thing holding people back is that it seems kinda ****ed up on a moral level.

If we're willing to do the exact same thing with animals, I don't see why there is anything wrong with doing it with humans.

If you're growing a fetus in a test tube, and you kill it before it got anywhere even close to being complex enough to contemplate it's own existence.... I don't see how that's any different from killing a dandelion.

I think the main argument is "potential". If there is potential and you prevent it, then it's morally wrong. If there's no potential then there shouldn't be any problems (stem cells from aborted babies for instance or stem cells from the umbilicus cord).