Newborn Fever - Flocking to an adoption
mecca
from Time.com
Katrina slept through most of her adoption hearing last
week in the sun-washed Charleston, S.C., courtroom. Her would-be mother and
father sat nervously alert. An attractive, wealthy couple from out of state,
they eagerly testified about their four-acre country estate, swimming pool
and well-protected play area as proof of their parental fitness. Yet it was
Katrina, at 15 months all blond ringlets and neatly pressed ruffles, who
spoke most eloquently on their behalf. Waking up in time to accompany the
woman to the witness stand, Katrina clung hungrily to her side, cooing "Mama".
Katrina's new mother and father are one of hundreds of couples who flock
to Charleston every year, drawn by the promise of easy adoptive parenthood.
In most areas of the country, adoption is a frustrating process, burdened by
the red tape and interminable waiting lists of state adoption agencies.
Although a few other states also allow adoptions in local courts by
nonresidents, South Carolina offers a unique blend of lax laws, aggressive
lawyers and open-minded newspapers that accept classified ads from couples
seeking babies. Federal regulations that are more rigorously enforced
elsewhere, like the requirement that state officials conduct a "home study"
of the prospective parents' fitness to adopt a child, are routinely waived
by South Carolina's lenient family-court judges. In 1982 there were six
times as many privately arranged adoptions—many of them made by
non-residents—as placements made through the state's official adoption
agency. To some, the situation has turned Charleston into a notorious baby
bazaar; to others, it has made the genteel city a welcome haven for couples
anxious to secure a child.
Katrina's case was handled by two of the nation's more controversial
adoption lawyers: Stanley ("Mr.Stork") Michelman of New York City, who was indicted but acquitted in
1979 of arranging illegal adoptions, and his frequent collaborator, Thomas
Lowndes Jr., a well-known Charleston attorney who handles more than 100
adoptions a year.
The two attorneys encouraged the couple to place an ad in the Charleston
News & Courier Post, which carries dozens of classified pleas each week.
Most of the ads promise love for the child and remuneration to the mother.
All of them end on a desperate note: CALL COLLECT ANY TIME.
The couple's ad got a response. And after they spent $12,326 in lawyers'
fees and maternity payments, their prayers were answered. Thanks in part to
the loopholes in the state's laws, they whisked Katrina home four days after
her birth. Some adoptions can be settled in as little as one day.