Are fees charged by adoption agencies ethical and fair?
I believe some agencies charge ethically. They are out there. The agencies that are truly non-profit. (IMHO, there are quite a few that hide behind that label.) Our agency charges an agency fee on a sliding scale, based upon income. For my income bracket (the lowest one they have, we are not rich by an stretch of the imagination, but comfortable enough to be in this process without spiraling into debt). In that agency fee, they include the following: the cost of the salaries of the people actually working with us – (the caseworkers, the secretaries, etc.), legal fees, paperwork fees, etc. We do not pay the specific costs related to any mother we may be matched with. Those costs include her counseling, medical care, transportation. They make quite a few other services available to them, which are voluntary. Quite a large portion of our fees goes to a sort of pool – assistance for mothers who do decide to parent and not to proceed with the adoption. If the mother we are matched with does
