Here's a scenario from today's international news:

A woman is walking down a public street in village with her four-month-old daughter, when suddenly some people come out of nowhere and pounce, attempting to snatch the child.

A fight ensues, during which one of the attackers repeatedly shouts, "Get the baby! Get the baby!"

The mother manages to ward off the baby snatchers, and thankfully neither she nor her daughter have been injured in the attack. The bad guys run off.

Given today's news climate around issues involving children ... especially babies ... what sort of suppositions may people make when hearing this story? Where do minds leap?

Is it possible that thoughts immediately jump toward headlines like those coming out of Guatemala a few days ago ... "Stolen Children Rescued from Guatemalan Adoption Home" ... and link the attempted snatching to adoption?

Do visions of desperate potential adoptive parents grasping toward babies at any cost without concern for how those children come to be considered adoptable come to mind?

Do thoughts of gangs and mafia-like organizations making money stealing adored and adorable kids with the express intent of selling them off via international adoption come up?

Or ...

Does this story stand alone as an obvious attempt at a horrible crime in which no connection with international adoption even slightly glimmers?

Context, of course, is everything, so I'll place this story for you. It takes place in a village suburb of Wigan in England, and not on a dusty back road in Guatemala.

That rather removes the adoption-as-motive bit, doesn't it? Realizing that there are bad people in England who conduct criminal activity isn't a stretch at all, as we live in the real world and understand how things are. After all, stuff like this happens at home, too, tragically, doesn't it? And there's certainly no reason to assume that a kidnapping in our world has anything to do with adoption.

So, why is it so many are so quick to assume the worst in all international adoptions?

Although there most certainly have been cases of criminal involvement, unethical practices, dirty dealing and shady characters, the huge majority of internationally adopted children were not stolen from birth parents. They were abandoned or orphaned ... and some were abused and neglected ... and the option of adoption is often the only hope of a full, long, safe and loved live there will ever be for them.

Grabbing the most emotive language possible and shouting "TRAFFICKING", "STOLEN CHILDREN" and such may snag a lot attention and sell newspapers, but it does not tell the story, and when the balance of news is focused so narrowly, the tendency to tar with the same brush can become a reflex.