We may sympathize with the young woman’s plight. But when she is said to be “victimized,” we must ask: How? And by whom? Her plight may be the fault of the errant father of the child, her own parents, her lack· of a “moral” upbringing, or any number of other factors. But surely the baby seller and the adoptive parents cannot be held responsible; since when the girl approaches them she is already in a state of misfortune!

No. In order to make an accurate assessment, we must take the natural mother’s unenviable plight as a given. Then we must ask: will she be made better off or worse off by voluntarily entering into an agreement to give her baby up for adoption in return for, say, room and board for the last few months of her pregnancy, plus a few hundred dollars? As we have seen, in the natural mother’s own estimation, the agreement will leave her better off. If she did not think so, she would not enter in to it. If she is considered a victim, then so must every other person who makes a trade in impecunious or otherwise troubled circumstances. And if baby‐​selling is declared illegal on this ground, then consistency demands that all “poor”, “unsophisticated”, or “troubled” people be prohibited from making any commercial arrangement for themselves. Such is the reductio ad absurdum of holding the natural mother as a victim.

What about the adoptive parents then? Are they “victimized” by the transaction? Desperate for a child, unable to get one because they fall afoul of the establishment adoption agency’s rules concerning age, income, religion, or anyone of a host of other requirements, and, because birth control pills have virtually dried up the supply of babies, the clients of the baby‐​seller positivelytreasure the infant. Nothing else can be deduced from their willingness to pay up to $50,000—and in some cases, even more—for the privilege of adoption. It is only perverse logic of the most extreme kind that can consider such people “victims” of the “black market.” “Beneficiaries, who have seen their most fervent wish come true,” would be much more accurate.

What about adoptive parents who have been placed on agency waiting lists but will not receive a baby because it was taken up by the black market? Baker sees this as a particular crime against the poor, because, in the words of Morello, “This racket says, ’Here is the economic breakpoint. If you have more than that, we can start dealing, but if you don’t, good‐​bye, we don’t want to talk to you’”.

But on this interpretation, the very price system itself is a “plot” against the poor. Only if no prices are charged for anything, and if goods are distributed in some way invariant to income will the poor be in the same position as everyone else. But of course, that “position” would be a terrible one. For without the price system, the economy, and society itself, would grind to a halt. Most people on earth, the poor included, owe their very lives to its existence. And it alone, by providing the incentive to create a baby‐​producing industry, can end the “baby shortage”, which is at the heart of the problem.

The courts, and the police too, are sometimes seen as victims of black market baby selling. For when a great deal of money is made by disobeying a law, part of it is likely to be funneled toward the executive and judiciary branches of government, thus corrupting them. This happened commonly during alcohol prohibiton and it occurs today in the illicit drug market. So far, there is little evidence of it in the baby‐​selling market. But it is certainly a possibility. And if it occurred, the government would be harmed. But would it be a victim? No. To turn the old adage around: in this case the government would be more sinning than sinned against. For it is the creator of the malignant legislation which is responsible for the problem in the first place.

Finally, let’s turn to the infant itself. Says Baker: “Black market adoptions [are] transactions in which money, not the child’s welfare, is the paramount factor?’ “The original selection of the adoptive parents is not being made either by the natural mother or by an agency but by somebody who wants to know only the color of the adoptive parent’s money?’ In contrast, while the state’s representation of the “three days old infant’s” rights are “[imperfect] mechanisms”; the baby at least “deserves to have those mechanisms invoked and applied.”