Grabbed some numbers, since you prompted me to do so.
1. In the USA, health care costs are outrageous. This is sort of a known thing. IUI appears to cost something between $300-2000 (and yeah that is sort of a ridiculous range, because yay for capitalism), if the patient doesn't have insurance. For some hella wide ballparks, this link appears to give national averages for the usa. http://www.advancedfertility.com/fertility-treatment-costs.htm
2. In my state fostering appears to actually cost about that. http://www.in.gov/dcs/adoption/faq.html Also keep in mind that there is a federal adoption tax credit for something like $10k, which is probably helpful even for those who are bound and determined to spend the extra dosh for a perfectly-healthy newborn infant rather than one of those troublesome older kids in the foster system. There's a state-level one as well that on its own should mostly offset the initial legal fees and stuff for a foster parent.
So that comparison actually isn't super outrageous. You're definitely right that I hella overshot in my estimate of typical fertility treatment costs, which is a sample error on my part that I shouldn't have made. I know people who paid out the anus for their treatments, but it looks like they're not a reflection of the average (possibly because they did a bunch of rounds of treatment, or were just willing to pay more).
But yeah I'm gonna keep focusing on fostering as the comparison, for reasons I mentioned earlier. I get that lots of people want a newborn that'll never have known any parent or family but the one they're being adopted into. I get that that's a thing. Unfortunately, some people want that more than they want to save a child from a shit situation who is often absolutely old enough to know what's happening to them, and while that's their call to make I am not gonna pretend I think it's awesome.
There are people who are barred from adopting for bullshit reasons, such as gay couples, though that was going to be a problem for at least one of the parents anyway if they opt to go for artificial insemination or a surrogate and the child is only biologically related to one of its parents. This is definitely bullshit, though, and as someone who is really really supportive of adoption, it's offensive to me on levels that I have a hard time articulating that there are kids out there who are stuck in the system because the only way for a gay couple to have kids was to create a whole new child.
Thank you for the number correction, but if you were trying to persuade me to feel better about people spending money to make new children when the system is full of kids who're already suffering... well, I am not sure that's a case you have made.
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1. In the USA, health care costs are outrageous. This is sort of a known thing. IUI appears to cost something between $300-2000 (and yeah that is sort of a ridiculous range, because yay for capitalism), if the patient doesn't have insurance. For some hella wide ballparks, this link appears to give national averages for the usa. http://www.advancedfertility.com/fertility-treatment-costs.htm
2. In my state fostering appears to actually cost about that. http://www.in.gov/dcs/adoption/faq.html Also keep in mind that there is a federal adoption tax credit for something like $10k, which is probably helpful even for those who are bound and determined to spend the extra dosh for a perfectly-healthy newborn infant rather than one of those troublesome older kids in the foster system. There's a state-level one as well that on its own should mostly offset the initial legal fees and stuff for a foster parent.
So that comparison actually isn't super outrageous. You're definitely right that I hella overshot in my estimate of typical fertility treatment costs, which is a sample error on my part that I shouldn't have made. I know people who paid out the anus for their treatments, but it looks like they're not a reflection of the average (possibly because they did a bunch of rounds of treatment, or were just willing to pay more).
But yeah I'm gonna keep focusing on fostering as the comparison, for reasons I mentioned earlier. I get that lots of people want a newborn that'll never have known any parent or family but the one they're being adopted into. I get that that's a thing. Unfortunately, some people want that more than they want to save a child from a shit situation who is often absolutely old enough to know what's happening to them, and while that's their call to make I am not gonna pretend I think it's awesome.
There are people who are barred from adopting for bullshit reasons, such as gay couples, though that was going to be a problem for at least one of the parents anyway if they opt to go for artificial insemination or a surrogate and the child is only biologically related to one of its parents. This is definitely bullshit, though, and as someone who is really really supportive of adoption, it's offensive to me on levels that I have a hard time articulating that there are kids out there who are stuck in the system because the only way for a gay couple to have kids was to create a whole new child.
Thank you for the number correction, but if you were trying to persuade me to feel better about people spending money to make new children when the system is full of kids who're already suffering... well, I am not sure that's a case you have made.