In your quest for a “rainbow family” I cannot help wonder why you seem to only have your eyes focused outside the United States. Are you aware that there are children of many colors, ages and physical abilities in need of loving caring homes, right here at home? Are you aware that there is half a million children in foster care in the US, and that of those between 126-134,000 can never be reunified with any family and could thus benefit from adoption into a permanent family?
I was always taught that charity begins at home. I wonder why you, and others who adopt internationally, turn their back on these children. If just one in 500 of those considering adoption, adopted one of these children all of the children in foster care waiting for adoption would have permanent, loving families, according to a 2002 survey conducted by the Donaldson Institute.
An increasing number of people are recognizing that international adoptions are fraught with corruption. Ethica, states that over forty percent of significant nations who have been “sending” children for intercountry adoption have been shut down in the fifteen years prior to 2004, due primarily to adoption scandals concerning corruption and child trafficking.
Legal scholar David M. Smolin found that:
“Given that many birth mothers [worldwide, are] living on less than two dollars per day—and some among those living on less than one dollar per day—it could be argued that relatively small amounts of money might help keep the child with the birth family…. As an ethical matter, it is perverse to spend thousands of dollars taking a child from the birth family, when a much smaller sum would have kept the family intact…..where parents give up their children for the lack of a few hundred dollars, or less, but the intercountry adoption system spends tens of thousands of dollars completing the adoption of the child, the concept of compassionate adoption becomes a cruel hoax… upon closer examination it appears that the ethics of the adoption systems, both domestic and intercountry, are just as illusory and fictional as the legal prohibitions on child-selling.… Intercountry adoption is a form of child trafficking not because adoptive families in rich countries obtain poor children from developing and transition economy nations. Rather, intercountry adoption is a form of child trafficking because the law and current systems of intercountry adoption permit it to operate as such.…the system as a whole is corrupt because it has no effective means of preventing intercountry adoption from degenerating into illicit child trafficking.”
Isn’t it far more compassionate to parent a child – or children where there far less question of bribery, kidnapping or profiteering from their removal and sale into adoption as there is known to be in South American, Eastern European and Asian countries?
Isn’t it far more compassionate to use wealth – such as that of Angelina Jolie – to help an entire village rather than ”rescue” one child in a fashion that some criticize as supporting a network of corrupt child traffickers?
Author of "shedding light on...The Dark Side of Adoption" (1988) and "The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoptuion Industry" (2007) www.AdvocatePublciations.org
MIRAH (aka Marsha) RIBEN has been researching, writing and speaking about the need to reform, humanize, and de-commercialize American adoption practices for nearly three decades.
Member of the Board of Directors, Origins-USA.org.
Why are you picking on someone who is at least adopting any child? Why not criticize those with plenty of money who practice birth control so they can have bigger houses and refuse to adopt or raise anything that is not a dog, cat or horse?
Are you aware of the difficulties of adopting now in the USA since the churches have abandoned orphanages? It is virtually impossible for a mother to come seeking her child back if you adopt in the Orient, or to press a law suit. Why aren't you hammering away at those who are aborting babies?
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and has absolutely NOTHING to do with this. Ms. Jolie has chosen, however, to put herself into the public arena and spotlight and has chosen to use her adoptions as photo ops ands publicity, unlike someone like Mia Farrow, and a multitude of others, who have adopted children with varying health issues from various parts of the world, but did it privately, regardless of their professional status.
Orphanages abandoned by churches? In what century was that? The Orient? I don’t know where you are from, sir, but according to The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook the term is offensive and should be avoided. That aside, all internationally adopted children have a hard to impossible time tracking any roots – as do their mothers have any hope to find them. This is one of the may things wrong with international adoption.
Adoption is intended to secure homes for children who are orphaned and other children in dire need. Since adoption is a post birth only occurrence according to law, all and any considerations of terminating a pregnancy have long past by the time adoption is an issue.
Those who choose to adopt pets, are generally more carefully screened than those who can pay for a child on the black and gray market, sad to say, and receive a fare more detailed background – known a s a pedigree – of the pet they adopt. Pets are never separated from their mothers for adoption until they have naturally weaned – a kindness we do not afford human babies.
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Mirah Riben (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 17 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 5:57:34 PM
I fully support anyone's deicsion to choose not to parent. I think it is wise not to feel pressured to have chidlren if you don't feel capable or desireous of giving them all they need. They are in no way part of the problems related to adoption, no more than someone who doesn't drive is contributing to suto gas consumption. But if and when someone does choose to purchase a car, they then have a choice whether to choose a hybrid or a gas guzzler that pollutes and over uses the earth's resoruces.
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Mirah Riben (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 17 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 6:25:19 PM
I wonder why people who use fetility drugs and concieve multiple babies. Why aren't they asked to relinquiah one or two for those "depserate" to adopt? Why isn't THAT unselfish?
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Mirah Riben (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 17 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 6:32:01 PM
I very much respect Profesor Pete but I have to say that here I solidarise with Mirah Riben wholly. First and foremost adoption must be done at home. And as a person very much familliar with the adoption of the Russian children ( see my ADOPTION diary entry under Mark Sashine) I can say that more disgusting thing I have never seen. It is an abomination: most of the US famillies adopting those kids are themselves not qualified to adopt here in the US. Joilie is having fun at other people's expense. Adoption had become a predatorish exercise.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3359 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 6:44:59 PM
Your response is typical of the sort of mean-spirited, intentionally misinterpreting the words of someone whose intentions are always honorable. If you are not intentionally misinterpreting, then you are incapable of debate.
Anyone who adopts a child from that sort of environment is rescuing them from a terrible future of mistreatment and/or prostitution. Have you ever spent any time in a poor village in the Orient? I was of the impression that those on this site were intellectually honest and professional. You are attempting to turn a discussion into a dirty-tricks political smear. You sound like a Bushite. Get thee to a confessional.
It is now quite obvious to me that you are envious of Jolie, because of her beauty, wealth and fame. Your attitude is not worthy of further discussion.
This is just FYI. Considering adoption, say from Russia it is not true that children there are all bound for prostitution, etc. In fact, I'd argue that poor children here ( I taught in Appalachian district) are in danger of that. I would also say that if there is a poor famliy intact , the way you help them is not taking their child away but helping the family or comunity.. Otherwise it is predatorish vulturism, sorry. Angelina is not the first one: before there was Madonna and then someone else... And before that Americans proudly stated about ' baby trains' when they took literally the Jewish children from the Nazis leaving the parents behind. How convenient? You keep your nice relationships with Fuhrer and at the same time- ' help' the Jews.
Children, whether adopted or not are subjects to laws, laws of their own country and international protections. Our predatorish adoption practice when a person defined as non- qualified here can go pick a child elsewhere like a mushroom is wrong. I am very sorry to contradict but that how I see the picture.
(in the link- remove the spaces after http: and maxwrite)
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3359 comments)
on Monday, May 14, 2007 at 7:03:46 AM
There are two big problems I have with this "open letter." The first is that it's really presumptuous to tell other people what to do with their lives. The second is that I especially have a problem with criticizing good works when the criticizer isn't following her own advice.
It's really easy to tell someone that they should be saving villages, but how many villages have you saved? I have been very affected by the poverty of the far east, but I haven't adopted any children because that is a lifetime commitment that I am not willing to give. Instead I support NGOs that teach women job skills so that they can support themselves. Am I also "inferior" in your eyes because I am not saving a village? Anyone who takes the time to do ANYTHING that helps another person should be congratulated. It is not up to others to judge whether it is enough, the right way to do it, or if it is what we would like to see done. It is just makes the world a better place that it is done at all.
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Bialto (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments)
on Monday, May 14, 2007 at 12:04:04 PM
I don't understand why you would want to judge Angelina Jolie. I think adoption is wonderful. If you want to adopt from within America that is great, you do that, but please accept that others should adopt from overseas. Angelina is open minded enough to adopt from different places around the world. That is her choice. It is great that people are talking about adoption more because of her. Lots of people obviously think adoption should happen in the US. That works for them but there are heaps of orphans in poor countries too. They have limited support and are dependant on overseas adoption. The families who choose to adopt these kids are open minded and accepting of different races. I don't think they should be put down.
Angelina and her family seem very happy and I wish them continued happiness for the future.
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Jess (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Monday, May 14, 2007 at 11:59:15 PM
As someone who has adopted a child from Asia, and who also knows many others who have done so, I take offense at the inaccurate portrayal of the process in this article. There is substantial screening in my experience, and children are given homes who would otherwise be brought up in orphanages and then perhaps have the option only of factory work or something of that sort. Fees paid by adoptive parents help upgrade the orphanages so staff is better paid and conditions are much better than in the past. The idea that children are bought, as another comments, is absolutely false, in the case of legitimate, licensed adoption agencies. We also looked into the situation in this country, and in fact many children here who are in foster care are not available for adoption since parental rights have not been terminated. The goal is to reunite families, and that does often happen.
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Laura (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 3 comments)
on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 4:08:56 PM
