Heartbreak of US baby trade
Louis Theroux has told of the heartbreak he encountered while investigating the multi-million dollar adoption industry in California.
In Sunday’s Take My Baby film on BBC2 he talks to those caught up in a system where pregnant women prepared to give up their newborns get to choose the adoptive parents, who are willing to pay up to $50,000 (£39,000) for a baby.
With the birth mothers he uncovers stories of poverty, addiction and abuse which lie behind their decision.
And with the hopeful adopters he discovers the emotional pain they must endure when the birth mother changes her mind.
Theroux sighs: “Tragedy is inextricable from the process of open adoption. It is completely correct that the mum should be allowed to change her mind. But the mums and dads looking to adopt are often heartbroken in their own way – they’ve been trying for years to conceive, or have lost pregnancies.
“They’ve invested a huge amount of hope and fragility into the idea of having a child, so when a birth mum says, ‘I changed my mind,’ it’s cataclysmic.”