While I was away, there was some flack headed my way in reaction to a blog I posted about an anti-adoption nut a while back, suggesting that perhaps my criticism of some who vociferously oppose everything about adoption and would do just about anything to see an end to the option for all of the world's children has everything to do with keeping the bucks piling in and the attention focused on little old me. (Don't emphasize the old, please.)

Yeah. Right. Whatever.

Rather than try to reason over the annoying whine of axe against grinding wheel, today we'll take a look at where the rubber meets the road, shall we?

As I mentioned yesterday, there's a heck of a lot of adoption-tainting milage coming out of a situation in Guatemala right now. With TRAFFICKING, STOLEN CHILDREN and such writ large in headlines around the world, heads are shaking and there's no little tsk-tsking going on as people line up to jump on condemning bandwagons ready to beat the drum of corruption and ain't it awful. All this, of course, before there's any real understanding of circumstances, motivation or anything else that could very well eventually lead to this being a non-story.

Lisa is doing a good job of keeping up to date and passing along pertinent info, and there is a lot of that around, with more coming all the time.

This, for example, from the US Embassy, that seems to suggest that this could be a case of moving goal posts ... for what reason can only be guessed ... and not one of felonious intent.

For the sake of the intentionally obtuse, I will again stress that I am against corruption and for reform of adoption processes worldwide, that I truly do understand that bad people do bad things and that they shouldn't get away with it, and that I believe no child should be ever be removed from a loving, caring family against anyone's will. I am also very much in favor of world peace, an end to poverty and the proper application of punctuation.

And the fallout?

At the least, two-score-plus kids have been uprooted and shifted from one place to another. At the worst, some now will never find families.

The benefit?

Perhaps another step will be implemented to the adoption process in Guatemala. That could be good, not good or neutral in impact.

In a country where over 30,000 children die every year from preventible illnesses and more than 50% of the total population of children are malnourished, perhaps the 46 possible pawns from Casa Quivira mean nothing. I doubt, however, that they or the families longing for them to come home would agree.

And lest anyone suspect the ramifications are limited to the few hundred people directly involved, check out this knee-jerk reaction that would seem strong enough to blacken all eyes in the general vicinity:

The Adoption Authority of Ireland has suspended applications to adopt children from Guatemala following concerns about adoption procedures and child-trafficking.

Could this be why I react to anti-adoption outbreaks and take the time and energy involved to place them in context, to remind about consequences, to unmask agendas? Am I concerned that a creeping miasma of anti-adoption sentiment is impacting the lives of children who have no way of understanding that their lives mean little in a campaign designed for political pressure and max-media spin? Do shouting headlines inspire me to dig deeper and present what I find so others are better armed to address off-the-cuff remarks from those deafened by the shouting?

Yeah. That would be close.

We'll be revisiting this topic soon.