It must be acknowledged that the numbers of children adopted from one country, then raised in another nowhere approach a percentage of any country's population of children, or of orphans for that matter, that could register as statistically significant, much less enough to be held responsible for any sort of cultural genocide.

It can be argued, however, that a country's loss of even one of its children could be responsible for a sequence of events that might eventually lead to the nation ending up much poorer for the loss.

What if a child adopted from Cambodia would have been the country's future great leader, the one that would bring lasting peace and great prosperity to all the people? Suppose another would have grown up to write a novel that would change the course for the positive, or discovered a forest plant with miraculous healing properties?

Could that not be a version of cultural genocide? By removing the makings of pre-eminence, is the future of the culture culture compromised?

Every child is a hope for the future, a chance for greatness, a possibility of great change, so every child lost is a tragic disappointment of potential.

But there's the fly in the adoption-as-cultural-genocide ointment ... an adopted child is not lost, just relocated.

In Cambodia, the odds of a child dying before their fifth birthday is higher than it is almost anywhere in the world, and the likelihood of an education is lower,and the chance of a child reaching full potential is negatively impacted by these realities.

Although no one should adopt with saving a child at the top of their agenda, it is often the case that adopted children would not have survived had they not been. Even when the matter is not life and death, it very well may be that orphanage life or years of living on the streets hampers development enough to ensure that a child who may have been born with the capability of greatness will need to spend every drop by the time he's fifteen or so just to stay alive.

Although the contributions of beggars, prostitutes and street kids can be considered part of a country's culture, they aren't usually what those concerned about cultural genocide are afraid to lose.

For more, see the next post.