There will also be a "supply" for foreign adoption as long as populations are too poor to take in relatives' children and provide for basic needs. There have been recent African scandals where "adoptable orphans" have been revealed to have living parents who were simply too poor to feed them--some were knowingly relinquished and some parents were pressured to "temporarily place" their children in orphanages so that the children could get two meals a day.

I don't necessarily think that the law should "favor genetics", but consider if someone in your family died or was too poor to care for an infant--would you think it the best case for your infant niece, nephew, cousin, or grandchild to be adopted overseas where you would never hear of them again, or would you think that it would be all right for you, given the resources, to raise them?

People spend so much time and money adopting one destitute child from third-world nations, when that same amount of money could enable several children to grow up and be cared for in their native land, giving them a better life there and a better future for their country. Does a child brought over to the US enjoy material advantages well beyond those of their unadopted siblings? Certainly; they also deal with unique challenges. But I think there's something sick that incentivizes (however slightly) keeping countries poor, and a source of adoptable children.

Consider, too, that adoptive-available children have historically come from "shame" and poverty. The major reason that there are so few "adoptable" children in America today (even aside from questions of birthparents' rights) is because:

1. Single mothers, who were historically shamed and browbeaten into relinquishing their infants, are now almost overwhelmingly choosing to raise their children themselves and

2. AFDC and welfare are giving families who could not otherwise afford to feed their children financial help, and social work *may* offer single parents other child-raising help. Ask around about Depression-era parents who sent their children into orphanages because they could not feed them, or because one parent had died and the survivor could simply not raise them alone.

@7, the recent "Indian surrogate mothers" articles in the blogosphere and print world touched, again, on the concept of American surrogates having too many rights and too much power for the liking of those buying their services.

I'm not ragging on adoptive parents; but I think there are so many problems, on so many levels, with adoption as currently practiced.

"Maybe in a few years there will be an effective, cheap and safe male contraceptive, but for some reason no one is researching that much, and I'm damned sure it isn't because of lack of demand from men."

And if only they could be bought for a few quarters, in places like bathrooms!

Seriously, though, men who are very deeply concerned CAN wear condoms and/or have vasectomies. There are many reasons why men do not (yet) have a wide and varied range of hormonal contraceptions like women do, and that really sucks and that should change. But I repeat:

Reproduction itself is sucky and inherently unfair. (I'm not even being sarcastic here!) It's so unfair that women bear all of the burden and pain. It's so unfair that, strictly biologically speaking, women get an extra "right of refusal" in the form of abortion. It's so unfair that nature doesn't give a damn how we feel. It's so unfair that women have hidden ovulation! (well, from the male perspective)

Keep 'em wrapped or get 'em snipped, gentlemen.