Do you believe that America is in a state of *Haiti Adoption Mass Hysteria*?

Globe and Mail
Now is not the time for Haitian adoptions, says agency
Globe and Mail
19, 2010 11:32AM EST A national organization representing adoption agencies is warning Canadians against trying to adopt Haitian children who have been ...
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Valley Adoption agency flooded with calls for Haiti orphans
ABC15.com (KNXV-TV)
SURPRISE, AZ -- A local adoption agency is getting flooded with calls from people looking to adopt Haitian orphans. Building Arizona Families in Surprise ...
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Schools, shelters get ready -- in case
MiamiHerald.com
Our Kids, Miami-Dade County's private foster care and adoption agency, has alerted DCF to its interest in helping children orphaned by the quake. ...
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Top federal official will visit Miami to help groups handling TPS filings
MiamiHerald.com
Also eligible will be children previously identified by an adoption agency as eligible for adoption and who have been ``matched'' to prospective adoptive ...
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The hows and whys of adoption
Indian Express
Adoption is the manner in which a person or a couple can adopt a child who is an orphan and is in the care of the state agencies. ...
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Frederick News Post (subscription)
Earthquake increases adoption urgency for Frederick couple
Frederick News Post (subscription)
A statement posted on the US State Department's website Friday afternoon said the department was working with other agencies to identify options for ...
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Adoption process literally buried under rubble
Abbotsford News
Lorne Welwood, executive director of Hope Adoption Services in Abbotsford, said families the agency works with are frantic. “We're being besieged by calls ...
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Holding breath on Haiti adoption
Sioux Falls Argus Leader
Marc Andreas, vice president of marketing for Bethany Christian Services, said his agency, which has an office in Sioux Falls, fielded 300 additional ...
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Earthquake raises urgency for couple from Ozark to finish Haiti adoption
KY3
An international adoption agency is urging people to contact their local congressional representatives to get these children to their adoptive families as ...
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KYW1060.com
Expert Says New Haitian Adoptions Are Now On Hold
KYW1060.com
based private adoption agency licensed in this area. He says the Haitian orphans flown to Pittsburgh by Governor Rendell were 53 of several hundred orphans ...
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?2010-01-19T21:28:41Z

Favorite Answer

At the risk of sounding like a cynic and being branded a "bitter and angry bmother" I would simply say that I have seen less hysteria on the Discovery Channel during a Shark Week feeding frenzy! It is impossible to escape it, since it is everywhere! I am sick to death of the exploitation. I know it is a horrible place right now and the conditions are almost beyond the scope of imagining, but why is it that during every disaster, the great hope is to "help the desperate" by helping ourselves to their children? Have they not suffered enough? It sickens me!

Anonymous2010-01-20T05:03:39Z

Yes, it is! I check adoption news feeds daily, and for the last week or so they've all been "local family worries about Haitian child they were in the process of adopting" and "Where can I get a Haitian!?"

I don't blame people who worry about the child they had planned to bring to the US before disaster hit. I also like to think people mean well, but when they hear uncounted thousands are dead and their first thought is apparently "Hey, I could score a child out of this," it's hard to extend the benefit of the doubt.

It's also shameful that adoption is "the whole story" about the Haiti earthquake for most Americans. We don't hear so much about people who were already suffering crushing poverty going without drinkable water.

Anonymous2016-05-26T04:27:19Z

There are two ways to answer this question. One is to insult one or another candidate's supporters by using the question as a springboard since the poster doesn't know the answer. That is a juvenile answer, however. The other way is simply to answer it: And my answer is no. I've been living in America for more than 50 years, and Americans are a pretty stable group, in spite of the people who get off on trying to divide us. I see no evidence that the aftermath of this election will be any different from that of any other.

Anonymous2010-01-19T20:04:21Z

I've noticed a huge uptick in people noticing Haiti's adoptable child population. I'm worried that many people will jump on the Haiti adoption bandwagon. In six months when everyone forgets the country exists and the children start having grief issues, lots of buyer remorse's in the PAP.

The only good that has come from this is one of my church members who has been fighting for a year to bring his dead sister's two children to the states has been fast tracked. Hopefully they will be here by next week, both girls are HIV positive and they are not receiving their drugs at this point. They were staying at orphanage (his sister wouldn't take them in because they had HIV) and lucky escaped unharmed. He's hoping to be able to bring their three older siblings in later, he's still waiting to find out they survived along with his sister's family. He knows his parents are dead as well has both of his brother's entire families. He has one other brother and cousin he was close to who's homes were destroyed but no word if they got out or not. It's so hard to watch him suffer, getting those girls is the only thing that he is holding on to now that most of his family has been wiped out.

People need to lay off the adoption button until this can be sorted out, these people have lost so much, to take the only family they may still have left is inhumane. It's going to take months to finally identify which children truly have no one left. Even then other Haitians should be allowed to adopt first. Many of the children in the orphanage before the earthquake still had family but they were unable/unwilling to care for them. Many of their families may now decide to take them in. International adoption should be only reserved for orphans old enough to give their consent or due to their disability will have a very difficult life unless Haiti's standard of living rises.

eagledreams2010-01-20T03:23:44Z

Yes it certainly seems so from what I have read. It is not fair on the children. I say this because they are traumatised and to start shipping them round the world as a commodity to people who Had a "notion" to adopt one would make them a good person is not the right way of offering aid. They will be snatched from everything they have ever known from a parent they loved into a foreign land where people do not react or speak the same language or have any understanding of the culture they have just been removed from. Gently does it has to be the way forward.

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