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 circumstance can be deemed no excuse for removing a child from a birth country, and in fact extremely dire circumstances like natural disasters on a massive scale stamp 'halt' to any adoptions.

Kashmiri children became immediately unadoptable on the heels of the 2005 quake that left thousands orphaned.

The same thing happened after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, so newly orphaned kids in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand were removed from any adoption equation.

The argument goes that in times of huge upheaval, families are separated and it is difficult to establish who is indeed truly orphaned and who may have family somewhere, but I must point out that a lot of time has passed between these two horrid events and now, and the children are still not considered available for adoption in most cases.

For some perspective on the long-term effects of international adoption, and international adoption in the wake of great tragedies, I offer this article out of Canada that takes a look at orphans transplanted from various countries 60 years ago.

Although the Canadian government had denied Jewish refugees during the war, more than 1,000 orphans were welcomed into the country when the war ended. Next weekend, some of them will be getting together to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their arrival in Winnipeg.

Walter Saltzberg says Canada has been very good to him.

“Canada gave me the freedom to pursue a career and raise a family,” he says.

Not only did the orphans gain from their new home, their contributions to the new country have been great, as well. As one transplant put it: We felt that it was important to give back to the community which had welcomed us and given us so much.

It seems to me that terms like 'genocide' and 'racism' would be far more applicably bestowed when alternatives like adoption and immigration are denied in the face of tremendous suffering that accompanies horrific events than when they are pursued.