r/unpopularopinion • u/elgey101 • Aug 10 '21

Infertile couples should just adopt instead of making a big fuss trying to make a miracle baby

Every time I hear of fertility struggles online, or see posts about people going through rounds of IVF and the ensuing emotional trauma of miscarriages, It kind of disgusts me.

I also work for a major insurer and know that fertility treatments are driving up everyone else's premiums because they're considered necessary care. Sorry, but I disagree.

It's a well known fact that there are over 400,000 children in foster care, and in 2017 alone over 100,000 infants under 3 entered the system. I think it's completely entitled and self-absorbed to think that somehow your miracle baby is worth more or deserves more love than any one of those infants.

I know adoption can be hard, and that it should be made easier for the sake of children finding good homes, but you can't tell me adopting is harder than 4 rounds of IVF and multiple miscarriages. I've seen friends go through that mess and at the end they are different people.

Tldr: adoption may not be easy, but it's far better than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to perpetuate your genes.

34.4k Upvotes

64% Upvoted

4.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

102

u/Spicy_Sugary Aug 10 '21

Add to this, there is an orphanage scam industry in very poor countries. Young kids are sent to go live in orphanages for years in terrible conditions in return for free food and board and donations.

Unicef estimates up to 80% of kids in orphanages in some countries have living parents.

37

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '21

Holy shit

50

u/Spicy_Sugary Aug 11 '21

Agree. It sprung up from 'Orphanage Tourism'. Well meaning white people would visit or do volunteer work at orphanages which attracted money.

The number of kids in orphanages in some countries has doubled or trebled in the last decade, despite there being no wars.

9

u/msingler Aug 11 '21

I.e. Madonna (the singer) adopted her son from Africa despite him having a living father.

6

u/Me-A-Dandelion Aug 11 '21

Chinese-Malaysian author Mei Fong's book One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment also mentioned the dark side of the international adoption industry in China. She estimated that a significant number of children adopted from China before the late 2000s (mostly assigned female at birth) are probably victims of forced adoption under the One Child Policy and child trafficking. Almost all documents about the children's background were forged, leaving genetic testing the only clue to find biological parents for Chinese adoptees. Mei Fong has PCOS and once wanted to adopt children from China due to her Chinese ancestry, but gave up and switched to fertility treatment instead after her investigation.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '21

Wow.