Author(s): Marian Quartly (Lecturer in History, Monash University, Australia)

Pregnancy & Parenting

The Market in Babies tells the history of adoption in Australia from its beginnings in the 19th century to its decline at the beginning of the 21st. In the early years, supply outstripped demand; needy children were hard to place. In the mid-20th century, demand and supply grew together with adoption presented as the perfect solution to two social problems - infertility and illegitimacy. Supply declined in the 1970s, and demand turned to new global markets. Now these markets are closing, but technology provides new opportunities, and Australians are buying babies in the surrogacy markets of India and the US. As the rate of adoptions in Australia falls to a historic low, and with parliaments across the country apologizing to parents and children for the pain caused by past practices, this book identifies an historical continuum between the past and the present, and it challenges the view that the best interests of the child can ever be protected in an environment where the market for children is allowed to flourish. The book's authors are long-established scholars with expertise in the history of the family, welfare history, and the making of public policy in Australia.