For months now we have been following the case of an American couple trying to adopt a South African baby who had been abandoned at birth upside-down in a bucket, and looking at the state of orphans and international adoption in South Africa.

For... more

Continued from the previous post

Children in America are far from immune from the potential of sexual abuse with between 39 and 60 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse struggling to exist today.

• 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18. • 1 in 6 boys is sexually... more

I wrote yesterday on a look at a criticism of international adoption that takes issue with taking a child from one country and raising that child in another, citing calls of "cultural genocide" and "racism", and juxtaposing those against claims from some adult adoptees who celebrate their change of location and circumstance 60 years later.

A story in today's news, brings up another hit that adoption takes often and prompts me to once again draw some comparisons that many choose to ignore.

The... more

There is a great deal of criticism in some circles when it comes to the international adoption reality of removing a child from one country and raising him in another.

Terms as strong and emotive as "cultural genocide" and "racism" are tossed around like grenades, and the whole idea of international adoption is condemned as evil or tragic or both.

Children adopted from a country may be thought to have been robbed of their culture, and there is no shortage of adult adoptees who are happy to back up this idea with resentments over the fact that they don't speak the language of their birth country nor feel they truly fit when they return after a life lived elsewhere.

Dire... more

Continued from the previous post.

Some would insist that every person who produces a child biologically is immediately invested with love and caring for their offspring and dedicated to its welfare, no matter the facts and stats that prove this is far too often not at all the case.

Some suggest that because adoption is not completely free of the taint of corruption and greed, there should be no adoption at all, which makes about as much sense in today's world as saying that since aid to the less fortunate is fraught with fraud and bribery, no medical or agricultural assistance,... more

Hardly a day goes by now that I don't come across one version or another of the general 'adoption sucks' mentality spewed by someone with a personal grudge against the very foundations of this already limited option for children. Narrow views that take in nothing beyond a tiny picture formed by one experience act like iron filings near a magnet and glom together in random forms that can never be anything but a ragged mess of individual negatives drawn toward an opposite positive as though to overwhelm.

Stick enough sharp little bits of negatively charged remnants together and some considerable weight can be created even though a usable shape will never result, and this is where no... more

Continued from the previous post where we were looking at some faulty thinking ...

Can we point out how downright silly many of UNICEF's arguments against international adoption are? The hierarchal system insisted upon, for example, that can so quickly be checked and discounted: bio parents, then other nationals, then foreigners living in country, then as a last, last resort, parents in gasp! a whole other country.

Biological parents... more

Continued from the previous post where we were starting to look at a UNICEF contribution called "State of the World's Children 2007".

The "Women and Children: The Double Dividend of Gender Equality" title does have a lovely ring to it, but it's hollow, folks.

UNICEF director Ann Veneman says in a press release, “If we care about the health and well-being of children today and into the... more

I am so not in a mood for this today. Cj has been sick since the weekend ... a high fever with no other symptoms, always a worrying combination ... and I have guests arriving next week, so a very long list of things that need doing in preparation.

I'm also becoming progressively more concerned that the upcoming conference on 'ethics and accountability' will end up serving as a respectability prop for some of the more vociferous anti-adoption voices, and therefore lose much of whatever positive impact it may... more

Mary started it, and Erin picked it up, now I'm posting on this meme.

Four things I thought about adoption when I was a child:

That my brothers and I must have been adopted because I was darned sure my parents had not done that sex thing I'd heard about.

That one of my brothers had birth parents from another planet.

That orphans could all sing and dance.

That children who lost their parents often had to live with mean people and work... more