Originally Posted by LukeEngineer

... but that he/she is exactly worth $717 or something.

I think babies are actually pretty expensive. I believe if you want to adopt an azn baby, it typically costs around ~$30,000.

Originally Posted by jhan523

I think the main argument is "potential". If there is potential and you prevent it, then it's morally wrong.

Meh, I don't see what's so bad from stopping something from potentially happening. There is no scientific reason it's wrong... people just feel it's wrong because they never do it.

I think stopping someone from potentially existing to save someone actually existing seems perfectly logical.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

Meh, I don't see what's so bad from stopping something from potentially happening. There is no scientific reason it's wrong... people just feel it's wrong because they never do it.

I think stopping someone from potentially existing to save someone actually existing seems perfectly logical.

Some people go so far as to say preventing is murdering. Although I think that's REALLY pushing it. But they argue that one could be preventing someone who could do great things.

Are you talking about when a pregnant women is having complications with pregnancy? I think people that are against abortion would agree with you, just because it's the lesser of the two "evils".

Well, I'm more just saying I don't get why people freak out when it comes to experimenting with human fetuses. Yes, there is the chance that you are preventing someone great from existing... but what are the chances of that? One in a million?

What's wrong with growing a human fetus in a tube purely to experiment on? I'm sure the same thing has probably been done with animals.

I think I'm derailing from the topic at hand....

I do not support the unregulated sale of babies for consumption. Babies are a commodity that should be taxed, at the very least.

I haven't read the comments but if you let prices dictate the market, what's to stop a very rich pedophile? I also think that being sold like commodities devalues the worth of the child.
Let's say we have a screening process on hand. I pass with "adequate", whereas you, a person who has been trying to have children for years, pass superbly. I have more money: does that REALLY entitle me to a child?

I agree there are massive flaws in the adoption and foster systems right now, but I definitely don't think that "the baby market" should be anything more than what the GAP caters their newest line of skinny jeans to.

Edit: Even effective "screens" can be bypassed with the right amount of money. Again, a wealthy pedophile or pervert could pay a person to purchase the child on their behalf and get screened instead of them. Or they could just fake the screen.

Originally Posted by jhan523

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

It is, but just the whole concept of utilizing children for economic reasons.

The whole idea sounds repulsive to me. Everytime I think of couples producing babies for the sole purpose of selling them, I keep getting images of A Handmaid's Tale in my head, where people were only used for certain roles and nothing else.

.....I need to stop relating everything back to literary works. But what can I do? I'm an English major.

Originally Posted by AelyaS

A Handmaid's Tale in my head...

God, was that ever a horrible book. The only thing worse than it is the movie adaptation.

Margarete Atwood can tl;dr about descriptions of drywall like no other.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

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'm pretty sure most liberals are for stem-cell research. At least according to the game Democracy. =p

Originally Posted by goodnews.inc

I haven't read the comments but if you let prices dictate the market, what's to stop a very rich pedophile? I also think that being sold like commodities devalues the worth of the child.
Let's say we have a screening process on hand. I pass with "adequate", whereas you, a person who has been trying to have children for years, pass superbly. I have more money: does that REALLY entitle me to a child?

I agree there are massive flaws in the adoption and foster systems right now, but I definitely don't think that "the baby market" should be anything more than what the GAP caters their newest line of skinny jeans to.

Edit: Even effective "screens" can be bypassed with the right amount of money. Again, a wealthy pedophile or pervert could pay a person to purchase the child on their behalf and get screened instead of them. Or they could just fake the screen.

Apply these same questions and contemplations to normal adoption.. "whats to stop a really rich pedophile from trying to adopt a child?" etc.

There are families right now, who do in fact, sell their children (not babies however) for financial gain, and they more often than not, end up in the sex trade.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

God, was that ever a horrible book. The only thing worse than it is the movie adaptation.

Margarete Atwood can tl;dr about descriptions of drywall like no other.

The only thing worse than the movie adaptation is imagining Margaret Atwood reading the book out loud to you in that, awful, terribly dry voice of hers.