Continuing from the previous post where I was talking about care for disabled kids in Iraq.

Before anyone starts accusing me of any sort of bias here, let me expand my angst to include other areas that repulse me.

I'll start with the millions of young girls subjected to genital mutilation ... a practice that is still most often looked at as some near-innocent cultural quirk that it would be rude to hold against a society, a culture or a religion.

Moving right along, let's quickly revisit female infanticide that accounts for an estimated 7,000 baby girls that are wiped out EVERY DAY in India alone.

Just today, another story makes the news about the sex trade, this time in Cambodia but certainly not limited to that grindingly poor country, and parents who willingly sell toddlers into a short life as a sex slave.

We're not talking small numbers here, people, but millions of children. We're not talking past history, but today, tomorrow and on and on, much further into the future than any of us can see. We're not talking about fiction or overstatement or exaggeration, but tip-of-the-iceberg.

We're also not talking new and shocking information, but hard facts that have been known for a very, very long time.

It's a mean, nasty, harsh and horrid world for more children than can be imagined without danger of anyone doing the imaging losing their lunch and going slowly mad with frustration, anger and grief.

And like it or not, very, very often it's the parents of these children directly responsible for the meanness, nastiness, harshness and horror.

It may be difficult to accept when sitting in the heart of feel-good, got-my-support-group, life-must-be-fair, take-everyone's-feelings-into-account America, but life sucks for a lot of kids, and it's their parents' fault.

Should anyone want to look deeply into my soul to see why I am so vehemently an advocate for adoption, you need delve no further than this series of posts. Until someone figures a way to make all parents make the world a safe and loving place for their kids ... and live long enough to see it through ... I will do whatever is in my power to keep the option of an adoptive family taking that mantle up open to as many children as possible.

Continued in the next post.