Adoption: Should it be legal?

Lee Barats: Yes, keep adoption safe, free and legal

Alright fine, Sean. We’ll debate the one thing nobody wants to debate. It’s the most controversial issue in America today, but I happen to feel very strongly that adoption is a great option for couples everywhere who want a healthy family life, but don’t want to have sex.

First, it is an individual’s choice to adopt a child or not. If the government declares adoption illegal, then every American citizen’s rights have been denied. As human beings, we can raise another person’s child if we so choose. And how dare you or any organization try to tell me what to do with my disposable income?

If adoption was no longer a possibility, more and more children would grow up as orphans, in bad homes and in third world countries. That’s terrible. Adoption prevents kids from growing up in awful places where they’re unwanted. Studies show that kids suffer less if they are adopted than if they are raised by their biological parents. In a weird way, adoption is sort of humane.

If you want to get technical about it, most adoptions take place in the first trimester of a person’s life, or before the age of 25. During this period of a human’s development, they are not able to survive in the outside world without the financial assistance of their parents. Therefore, the child is just another one of the parent’s financial assets. Adults should be able to cut ties with an investment at any point and give their dependent up for adoption.

I’m sick of hearing about the health risks involved. Adoption is a completely safe medical procedure. Did you know that 95 percent of adoptions are successful with no health damages to the parents or child? Adoptions won’t stop if you make them illegal. People are going to adopt babies whether you like it or not. Forbidding adoption will just result in more and more back alley adoptions, or “kidnappings.” And as you know, most kidnappings result in at least somebody getting the crap kicked out of them. There’s the real health risk.

So please, don’t tell me something’s wrong when it benefits the individuals involved and society as a whole. If you look at the issue logically, there’s really no good reason not to adopt children. So go out, get a boyfriend or girlfriend, and adopt a child today.

Sean Michetti: No, let’s stop this baby swap meet

I first thought to start this column by apologizing for being pro-good-life. But then I would be a liar, and liars live bad lives. As a pro-good-lifer, lying goes against my single core value: living goodly. This being said, you can see why I am adamantly against the legality of adoption. It involves intentionally tossing an innocent baby into the ocean of unpredictability.

Harry Potter may glamorize the life of an adopted child, but Harry has (*spoiler alert!*) magical powers to offset the terrible environment in which he is raised. Plus, Harry has a messenger owl, Hedwig, to keep him company, until of course, (*spoiler alert!*) Hedwig dies. Now, if dirty Muggle children try to befriend a wild animal, they’ll undoubtedly be ripped to pieces or, if they’re lucky, develop a case of brain-dissolving rabies. So thank you J.K. Rowling, for profiting off innumerable lies about the joy of adoption, as well as the unnecessary and painful death of (*spoiler alert!*) Professor Dumbledore.

If you are going to have sex, use protection. Too many girls have become comfortable using adoption as a form of birth control. Pregnancy is basically a Depo Vera shot that lasts for nine months. Because if a girl is pregnant, she can have all the unprotected sex she wants and won’t get pregnant. Buying other forms of birth control is embarrassing. I can feel the 7-Eleven night shift workers visualizing me naked when I buy condoms from them. I feel dirty. Pregnant women, on the other hand, are worshipped. They have doors held open for them, they can cut in buffet lines, and no one wants to argue with them. There aren’t any negatives with abusing pregnancy as a birth control.

What about the confused state the adopted child will grow up in? Imagine growing up looking nothing like your parents. Children begin to feel like they’re spies, gathering information and reporting back to their red-haired parents about what the olive-skinned Italian family eats and how they shower. If adoption continues at its current blistering rate, Blue Cross medical insurance will have to start covering therapy sessions as adopted children attempt to “find themselves.”

I now conclude my plea to you potential voters. In this upcoming election, demand that the Democratic and Republican candidates make adoption a top issue in their campaigns. If we continue trading children freely, then accidental in-breeding will doom America. Re-read that sentence, get afraid, and then write to your local congressperson about outlawing adoption.

Lee Barats is a mechanical engineering senior and Sean Michetti is a journalism senior. Barats and Michetti are Mustang Daily humor columnists and can be contacted at TitsforTats@gmail.com.