Were you a "Black Market" Baby?

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Babies

Our one remaining black market

Look Magazine
1954

By ERNEST A. MITLER with Bill Slocum

At its worst, the traffic in human flesh
is a racket beyond the reach of existing court procedures.

About a month ago, I had an extraordinary conversation in a mid western city with a woman just released from jail. She had passed a bad check; the law had hunted her down and put her behind bars. The experience, she said, had taught her a profound lesson.

"No more bad checks for me. I'm going back to selling babies," she said. "It's the best racket going."

A shocking statement, you will say. But I had just finished a decade under Frank S. Hogan, district attorney of New York County, as a staff assistant concerned, for the most part, with the baby-selling racket. I had traveled over a large part of the United States to investigate, on my own, this trade in human beings and to seek methods of stopping it. I was in a good position to know that bad-check bouncer was absolutely right.

She continued her soliloquy "It's a fifty-two-week-a-year job. You get paid every week, plus a bonus for every pregnant girl you dig up. And all you do is ride the bus and hang around clinics and bars looking for girls. Or hang around Parent-Teacher meetings and clubs looking for somebody who wants to buy a baby. When you latch on to a girl or a parent, you just send her to a go-between and he sends her to the boss."

She enjoyed talking shop to somebody familiar with her racket. "The best thing about this racket is you never get caught," she said. "The heat is never on. Because by the time somebody discovers the crime has been committed, it's too late to do anything about it. After a baby is delivered to the new parents and everybody is paid off, its six months before it goes to the judge and the investigators.

"Suppose some judge does get suspicious and doesn't like the smell of the thing. The parents just tell him to go jump in the lake. They take a plane to another state and get the papers. You know, Mr. Mitler, anybody who gets in trouble peddling babies is a chump.

In her own way, she was saying what I knew from experience. It is the most important single factor in the baby-selling problem. We haven't got Federal laws to stop it. We are fighting an interstate traffic in human beings without help from U.S. laws.

Basically, it's a little bit against the law in some states to peddle a baby - but only in some states. In most states, when a baby is given to foster parents by private arrangement, it is not until the child has been in its new home for months - sometimes it is over a year - that a court investigation takes place. Rarely, in commercial placements in which money changes hands with the baby, does the investigator and, in turn, the court ever get the complete facts; by then, it's usually too late for the judge to do anything but grant the decree. To defeat the black market in babies, we must begin our investigations before the time of placement, and not months later when only tragedy would result form undoing an already established situation.

Legally, the judge could refuse to grant an adoption decree. But unless a serious situation of some kind, perhaps a criminal one, existed in the foster home, and judge would be reluctant to remove a child. Denial of an adoption decree would only accentuate the insecurity. The child, nine times out of ten, would remain with the prospective foster parents but without the benefits of legal adoption.

There are cases where babies are sold like cattle. A Long Beach, Calif., man settled some poker debts and got his car out of hock by selling an unborn child for $200 and leaving a young daughter as security. In Chicago, an unwed mother sold a baby to a milkman for $1. Another child was sold twice in the course of a train ride from Los Angeles to El Paso. A social worker in New Orleans bought a baby girl for $30, and the midwife threw in a boy for another five dollars. But those are exceptional cases. The average black-market deal is a smooth operation, organized like any business deal.

"Baby Black Market" is a headline writer's phrase. It does not apply to the established, authorized adoption agencies whose primary concern is the well-being of the child in its prospective foster home. Adoption enters the black market, as I conceive it, only when the passage of money becomes the determining factor of the transaction. Traders in the black market may argue that all the money went for "fees and expenses," but their plea would not remove the taint if it was money alone that primarily determined whether a child went to one set of prospective foster parents instead of another. Nor does the fact that state laws lend themselves to this method of placement and adoption make it any less reprehensible.

She Was Proud of It

The battle of words over social-agency adoptive procedures versus private placement has raged for a long time, but nobody has seemed to know the facts. Because of my experience in "baby black market" investigations in New York, I was asked last year to testify in Washington, D. C., before the Hendrickson committee - the subcommittee on juvenile delinquency of the Senate Judiciary Committee. One official pointed out to me that my information was all very well but only applicable to New York State. Without the national picture, Congress probably would be loath to place Federal controls over interstate placement of children, believing that it, like other family problems, should remain within the states' jurisdiction.

To learn the truth, I set out on my own investigation and have traveled throughout the United States, Canada and Europe obtaining material for this article and for a book which I hope will focus general attention on a serious sociological problem and provide a basis for a sound adoption program.

Last August, on "information received," I visited the Hightower Health Home in Texarkana, Texas, and presented myself to Mrs. Ruby Hightower as a fellow who wanted to adopt a baby. I found a classic example of the commercialized placement of babies, tailored to fit the desires of anybody with money enough to pay the bill.

The Health Home, a rather ordinary house, is in a residential section. Upstairs, a few old folks are boarded. Mrs. Hightower has an apartment in town, where she sometimes houses expectant mothers or people waiting to get babies. She probably is about 70; she can be described as loquacious but pleasant.

When I told Mrs. Hightower I wanted a baby, she looked at me fondly and said, "Too bad you weren't here a couple of months ago. I had a baby with the biggest brown eyes, just like yours. And the biggest little old head."

I assumed it would take all my legal guile to wheedle information from her, but all it really took was my physical presence. Mrs. Hightower got people babies, she was proud of it, she indicated familiarity with ways of circumventing adoption laws, she was completely open about it all. I asked where her girls came from.

"Everywhere, suh. Every state in the union, I think. They hear about me and they come on to Mrs. Hightower. So do the adoptin' folks. Get most of my customers from right here in Texas, but I remember two from Michigan, one from Chicago, two from San Francisco and a real nice couple out of Los Angeles."

She told me she liked me and that she'd try to get me a baby... "Not right away, of course. My lord, I've got a list of applications as long as your arm."

How would we arrange it?

She spread her hands in the gesture that says, "It's up to you but it's easy." Then she outlined the possibilities. "This is the best way. A girl comes to me from Arkansas. She's pregnant. We'll say her name is Janet Jones. Well, I'll board her, and when her time comes, she goes into the hospital under your wife's name."

The birth certificate would be drawn as if my wife (I am a bachelor) had given natural birth, and I would take the baby away. This would eliminate all investigation and adoption procedure, but of course, it is clearly illegal in Texas or elsewhere.

"'Course, they fingerprint the mother over on the Arkansas side," Mrs. Hightower added. "But that don't make any difference. They hardly ever investigate the prints - once in a million."

"There is another way of doin' it," she continued. "It's a little more complicated. The girl has the baby under any old name she wants. You pick up the baby outside the hospital - I can't let you go in the hospital, they suspicion you right away. You pick up the baby and take it home. You take along the birth certificate. About six months later, you adopt the child in your home state. Tell the investigators the girl gave you the baby to look after and never came back for it. Leave my name out. They'll check around here, but you tell 'em the girl lived with Mrs. M. I fix it up so Mrs. M stands by the story. She always does that. So does the girl. That leaves me out. No one knows you got the baby through me." I wondered aloud whether perhaps the sovereign states of Texas and Arkansas might object. She looked at me with a stern eye. "Mr.... what did you say your name was?... I control between 250-350 votes around here. I don't fail to put 'em out of office if they cross me."

"I Just Chase 'em Away"

I asked if the welfare agencies bothered her. "Not much. They suspicion what I'm doing, but, you see, I'm out of it when the actual transferrin' is done. I just get folks together. When the welfare people come around, I just chase 'em away."

We talked a while about the competition, which apparently is heavy in that part of the country. (I later met some of the competion.) It was hard to get enough girls. And sometimes they were ungrateful wretches. "A couple had me arrested for kidnapping their babies after I helped 'em out of a real jam. Said I'd gotten $10,000 apiece for their kids and they wanted it. Threw it out of court. The Judge said, 'This woman,' meaning me, 'has done more for her county than any woman I know.'"

We came now to the cost. "Never had one over $600," she said. "And I have had 'em as low as $350." Would she mail me some information on the subject? "I don't mail nothin'," replied the lady who had done so much for her county.

I asked her what my wife should say to neighbors when we returned home with a baby. "Best thing to do is move. As for your friends, tell 'em anything. Don't worry - it will look like you anyhow."

Mrs. Hightower is not unique. She operates in a common pattern - she ignores the mother's rights and the rights of the baby and serves a customer. Her existence depends on the fact that there is no interstate control over non-Texas placements and on her ability to conceal the operation. As the woman who bounced the rubber checks said, there is no obstacle in the other states to prevent concealment from the court of the fact that the baby was bought in Texarkana. Under the usual adoption procedure, a judge in any jurisdiction is the last man to know the truth in this kind of a transaction. The judge isn't venal, he isn't lazy. He is confined to the information in the papers submitted to the court, including the report made by the investigator - either a social agency or private individual. If, with the collusion of the parties involved, they falsify the facts to the investigator and, in turn, to the court, the judge unwittingly sanctifies a black- market operation.

Getting a baby through the black market may take some time and travel, but there is available a package deal by telephone. At the moment, such tade is brisk in Chicago. On November 17, at a Midwest judge's suggestion, I telephoned a certain Chicago lawyer. He could handle my needs to adopt a child he to me, because, as he said, "The laws of Illinois are the most liberal in the U.S. and we want children to have a good home and because good American citizen can be a credit to our country." This attitude is not unique.

He explained that several Chicago lawyers were doing such work and that most of his clients came from New York, Detroit, Boston and California. "Sent out a nice little baby to New York the day before yesterday." He guessed he had supplied about fifteen children to his New York clients in the past three or four years.

What did he need from me as a preliminary? Only my name and address, the name of my clergyman and the name I would like to give the child. You can send in your background after you have the child. (There it is again: the deed is done before the facts are presented. And in this case I am master of my own set of facts.)

I asked how long it would take. "You better give me your business and home phone number," he said. "These things move pretty fast. We can do it in a day, once the child has been born. You get here at 9 a.m. and you are free to leave by 3, 3:30."

He assured me that this was all legal and the sad fact is that he was right. "You know," he said, "some clients say to me when we leave the courtroom, "Is this on the up and up? The judge didn't ask me one question." He laughed. He told me further facts about the Illinois law. It does not require an investigation in an adoption case to be an officer of the court. And once a mother signs a waiver, she can never change her mind. An Illinois adoption is legal and the world over, the lawyer told me proudly. Although I gathered from our conversation that the adoption may not become final until six months after the baby is handed over, this would appear to be a mere formality. The decree rests primarily on fact supplied by me. How can either the lawyer or the judge know whether I've deceived them?

Now came the matter of price. "Everything has gone up. The hospital bill is usually about $150, the doctor gets $200 to 250 and the girl may need some help before and after the baby is born. It will cost you between $2,000 and 2.100."

I couldn't resist asking him if his fee was included, "Yes, it's almost like what you would call a package deal."

So, if you want a baby and you can supply the name of a clergyman and you have $2,100, all you need do is spend seven or eight hours in Chicago and walk away with a real, live, breathing human being. The law is with you.

Mrs. Hightower is one kind of intermediary; the Chicago Lawyer is a second type, a man who acts the role of an agent for the prospective parents. There is a third common type which is not exactly in the black market; "blind market" might be a better word. They love the exquisite thrill of granting life and happiness to others. Their intentions are of the best, but the results can be just as tragic as those brought about by the most venal black-market operation.

Not long ago, a young man came into my office in a fury. He was a musician who had just returned from Europe to learn that, in his absence, his wife had become a mother - which he anticipated - but that she had given up her child for adoption. "I want my baby back," he told me, "and I'll spend the rest of my life getting it."

"She Must Have Been Lying"

My investigation revealed that the mother had come from the South to a New York doctor. Picturing herself as an unmarried girl in trouble, she begged his help. The doctor, like every doctor, knew a couple who desperately wanted a baby and who he felt were fully capable of taking care of one. So, wanting to do a good deed, he consulted a lawyer, and the necessary adoption arrangements were completed. When I told the doctor of the existence of a slight legal complication in the form of an irate husband, he was flabbergasted. "My God," he said, "she wept all over the office that she could never stand the shame of bringing an illegitimate child into the world. She must have been lying."

Further investigation disclosed that the people who had the baby had already suffered one shock - previously, a mother had reneged and demanded back a baby they thought was to be their foster child. The musician filed a writ and fought in court for his baby. He lost, but today he still vows he will get back his child. And the people who have it wonder if perhaps some day he will. The doctor's well-meaning but uninformed act brought sorrow all around.

This fall, I visited 40 doctors picked at random. When I said I was interested in getting a baby, six of them told me to see a licensed adoption agency. But the remaining 34, without any investigation of my background, said they would help. And not one, not even one, hinted that he wanted anything beyond his normal fees. They all wanted just to make people happy.

The potentialities of misery in this sort of unlicensed, unsupervised handing about of babies can be seen in three startling statistics: There are an estimated 1,000,000 American couples trying to adopt babies: there are only about 53,000 babies available each year; and a California study showed that 38.9 per cent of the women who let their children go through private placement were married or had other legal ties.

We have looked at three unwholesome situations that confront society. They are all of them morally wrong, however local law may regard them. Now let's see what we can do about them. There is no magic solution, but, certainly, better community services to the unmarried mother will reduce the number flocking to black-market baby operators and dubious commercial maternity homes. At most commercial maternity homes, the mother has the Hobson's choice of relinquishing her baby in order to have it. Often, I find, she must sign an agreement before birth to give up her child for adoption in exchange for room and board. If she wishes to keep her child, she must pay all expenses, which can run as high as $1,000.

She needs guidance, usually available at shelters such as the Florence Crittenton Home, before and after her baby is born. She doesn't get it in the commercialized maternity home. An unmarried mother who has had the benefit of understanding advice is better able to decide whether to raise or relinquish her child and will stick to whichever decision she makes.

The people in Seattle, Wash., recognized that fact in 1949. Washington had its share of commercial maternity homes, advertising like so many bingo parlors. Their main attraction, of course, was the fact that a girl in trouble could burrow into anonymity until her child was born. The social agency scare off many girls who doubt the promises of anonymity and are not aware of the treatment offered. The ad in the paper looks like a beam from heaven. Recoganizing this, a social agency decided to use ads too. In April of 1949, two newspapers in Seattle carried identical ads:

MATERNITY care for unmarried mothers. Including doctors, hospital and living arrangements. Confidential." A telephone number was given. Thus was born the "Washington Plan," in my estimation a step in the right direction.

With the full backing of the Council of Social Agencies and with modest sums from the Seattle Community Chest, this plan is operated by the Washington Children's Home Society. Assigned to the program is social worker Elizabeth Weinzirl. She picks up the phone when an ad is answered and looks after the girl and her interest until she leaves the hospital - with or without her baby as the girl may choose.

Doctors, paid a nominal fee, are not hesitant to work through the agency. There is a panel of fourteen doctors available; two hospitals make special arrangements; and a girl can stay home, board out or live in a private home where she is paid for easy work.

In 1953, this agency handled 103 cases from 20 states and Alaska. Seventy-four mothers confidentially turned their children over to the agency for adoption and seventeen chose to keep them. The remaining cases are not yet resolved.

Statistics are one thing, but sounder proof of the success of the Washington plan was a simple statement by Miss Weinzirl when I asked her about the commercial maternity homes in Seattle. She answered happily, "They're all gone."

In a subsequent issue of Look, Ernest A. Mitler will tell his
latest findings about the international baby black market.

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