International adoption, bad for America in general. Need sources to support this and have altered the theory.?

Hi Alix,

I like this argument better. The two strongest cases i think are how international adoptions affect future domestic adoptions and why take one child for thousands of dollars rather than spending thousands of dollars helping several children in that country.

I would look at gov records on visas into our country to see how many adoptions occur. Also look at state by state foster care systems to average how many total children are in foster care in the USA. Sorry i don't have more info.

Not sure on the population increases. Infertility treatments might have more of an affect on populations with women having like 6 kids at a time. Also there seems to be an increase of couples dealing with infertility so my guess would be that it equals out. Let us know what you find out. Also many people buy stuff outside of America. So i don't know how strong of an argument adoption has affecting our economy.

I wish you the best of luck although i don't agree with you.

The problem is that there is a lot more against your stance than for it. The 120,000 adoptions annually are a spit in the bucket in the economy where more than 4 million children are born annually. Just giving money to those countries doesn't help a child without a home because the child still doesn't have a home. None of that money will go to the orphanages anyway. For example, the only way that children of one orphanage get any decent clothing is because a former member of the village flies back annually with all the clothing we bought at garage sales that she can possibly pack according to airline regulations. She doesn't even take her own clothing (wears the same outfit for the full 3 weeks she is there) to maximize the clothing we have found for the kids.

Most of the money spent in international adoption is to the agency for the home studies, legal issues, visas and such. It does not actually go into the participating country's economy.

You have got to be joking! Did you not read about how our domestic adoption went terribly wrong? As an adoptive parent, I have heard far more horror stories about adoption in this country than any other. That takes care of your first point.

As for the population increase in this country, we are a country of immigrants. That is the very nature of the United States of America. Maybe illegal immigration control would be a much better way of handling that point. If you are allowed to have as many children as you want then I should be allowed to have or adopt as many as I want and from wherever I want. Besides, I have put a lot of money into our economy by buying things for my daughter, paying for her health care and her education. Your point doesn't hold water with me. Sorry.

We (my husband and I) did not take advantage of a "poor" country by adopting one of their "forgotten" and "unwanted" children. You have no idea what my daughter went through in Eastern Europe before we adopted her. She has and will suffer long term effects from what occurred there. My heart breaks for those children who will never know the love of a family. What about the children who will go hungry or not be tucked into bed tonight? What about those children who don't get basic health care or vaccinations? We did NOT take advantage of that country. They failed to take care of their own and we stepped in and offered a child a home, love and a bright future. Please do not forget that. Our adoption agency has been around for decades. They were one of the first into my daughter's birth country. Through our agency, that country received an abudance of financial help. Over the years, the country was no better off in spite of the money they received. So, adoption is not the only money these countries are receiving. Therefore, many children have the potential of being helped. Most countries have made strides in social reform. Unfortunately, my daughter's birth country did not. Our agency regrettably stopped placing children from there a few years ago.

I wish you would understand that when you write a paper, such as yours, you have the potential of hurting a lot of children who deserve loving homes. If you change just one person's mind, about adopting internationally, you have cost a chlld a family. That is for your consience.

Again, nothing personal against you. I have strong feelings about this topic and just couldn't keep my mouth shut.

I'm not trying to get you upset, I just wanted to let you know that many people go with international adoptions because it's less likely that the mother will change her mind and want the baby back when she's in a different country. Nothing could be more heartbreaking than thinking you're finally going to have a child and then getting that child and falling in love with it and then have someone come and take it away.

But as far as bad experiences and the way America gets viewed by other countries during international adoptions, look at Madonna's adoption situation with that little boy from Africa. The father is saying he never knew it was going to happen and all the drama that's been going on since then.

First i am an a adoptee,. Second I am Native American (Choctaw). Third you are a fool. Nation of Immigrants. Illegal immigrants I might add. My mother once told me that one of the happiest days of her life was when she held me in her arms for the first time. (not my biological mother) We are not talking about economy. We are talking about a bond between Mother/Father and there child.

There is a trend in this country concerning open adoption, HORRIBLE wrong. The person that changes your diaper every day, goes to those god aw full peewee tee ball games when you mostly sat on the bench. The one that cried when you left for the Army. That is a Mother.

How can you give economics into a situation like that. I found my biological mother and she was a total *****. If I was raised by her, I would be far less a person than I am now.

Love=money ya you are a fool

You mention "population increases." What exactly is the difference between Americans having their own biological children and adopting abroad in terms of population increases? Won't the population go up the same way regardless? The reason many people, myself included, think it is better to adopt internationally than to have kids myself is because there are so many countries where the kids would be growing up in war zones or would be forced into prostitution or in some other way have horrible lives if they were NOT adopted by people in 1st world countries. Thats not to say that everyone in other countries can't raise kids, but there are much more problems facing orphans in some parts of the world than in the United States. Therefore, it seems more responsible to adopt a child from a dangerous part of the world than to adopt in the U.S. or to have kids the old fashioned way.

You also mention price and that "thousands of dollars" are spent on adopting children. Maybe so, but if the idea is to have a child based on the same motivation as having your own blood-related child than just giving money to poor people is really not the same. Helping charities, while good to an extent and touching more lives, will also not help THAT much since the kids helped may still not be able to raise themselves out of poverty since they won't probably get good quality education or may be killed in a war or sold on the blackmarket anyway. Getting them out of the situation completely eliminates these problems.

Also, if you go to the U.S. Department of State website (easily found by typing in "department of state" and the name of whatever country you're looking for on Google) you will be able to see all the associated fees and other information about adopting in each country. Conditions such as price and amount of time needed to adopt vary considerably from country to country, so while your "thousands of dollars" statement may be applicable in some countries it may be very unreasonable in others.

Also, how does this price (even if it were "thousands of dollars") hurt the economy? I know its money that Americans are pouring into other countries, but tourists visit other parts of the world all the time and spend lots more money on things like air fare, hotels, soveniers, etc than they do on foreign adoptions. Also, most of the cars sold in the United States today were manufactured in Japan, so thats a much larger amount of money being funneled out of the country than through international adoption.

Well, let's just take that part about "currency goes out but it doesn't come back in."

I assume you are talking about the expenses involved in International Adoption?

Well, let's see....I spent about $20,000 in fees each time I adopted. However, the money didn't "go out and not come back in". Only 4 to 5 thousand dollars was spent internationally. The rest of it (between 15 and 16 thousand dollars) was spent on the U.S. side - fees for official documents here in the U.S., Homestudy costs, payments to our U.S. agency for their services, and - BY FAR THE BULK OF THE MONEY - airfare paid to United Airlines!!!

Yes, a U.S. air carrier got most of the money we spent when adopting each of our daughters! It was definitely the lion's share!

So before you criticize, check your facts!

And yes, I guess you have a perfect right to your opinion. But we also have a right to point out when we think you are wrong.

I don't think you are right at all...exactly how does international adoption hurt the American economy...trust me, international adoption agencies are making a lot of money in this country.

The children come over and we all know how Americans love their toys and things for kids...more money spent.

How does the currency go out, but not in...people with kids spend a ton of money in this country and not just at Disneyland....pediatricians, braces, schools, clothes....your idea is unfounded.

I think America's image in the world has a lot more to do with George W. Bush and Iraq that Mr. and Mrs. infertile American who want a baby.

You're right, you're entitled to be incorrect!

You do have a right to express your opinion, however when you do and especially when your opinion isn't backed up by evidence, you are open to being challenged.

If you want to take the angle of the negative effects of publicized celebrity adoption, that's a supportable position. Lots of famous people adopted (domestically and internationally) before Angelina and Madonna. They just didn't make a front page story about it.

As an international adoptive parent who adopted children from Africa, here are the problems with Angelina and Madonna, as I see them.

Angelina brought a lot of attention to Ethiopian adoptions. Ethiopia had an existing international program, but only did a couple hundred adoptions a year (if that) prior to this. Suddenly, Ethiopia shot up to one of the top five international programs, almost overnight. Lots of people had a knee-jerk response to, "Oh, I want a little baby girl, just like Angelina", without going through the research and the self-examination necessary for international adoption.

The agency we went through operates in a couple African countries and suddenly, they had more applications to their Ethiopian program than they knew what to do with! And everyone wanted "their little baby NOW!" Like you could just fly over and pick out a child. So, because many of these new perspective adoptive parents understood nothing of how international adoption works (ignoring the agency's efforts to educate them and taking no responsibility for educating themselves), they were flooding the agency with calls, letters, emails, etc that were getting progressively nastier and nastier. After that, the US embassy in Ethiopia was getting calls, letters, emails. Then the adoption authorities in Ethiopia. Bear in mind that Ethiopia is a former communist nation with a government that is very resistant to outside influences... especially from pushy, arrogant and entitled Americans wanting their cute little baby RIGHT NOW! This has caused a tremendous strain on their government and could certainly spill over into other areas of governmental relations with the US.

As far as I can tell, Angelina went through the process, but did not (in her numerous appearances) adequately describe the process and gave the impression to many that it was quick and easy. We Americans just LOVE quick and easy!

However, this is more than I can say for Madonna. Malawai also has an existing international adoption program, which requires adoptive parents to stay in-country with the child for a considerable length of time (6 months, if I recall correctly) after which, is another hearing to finalize the adoption.

Well, as it turned out, Madonna was just too rich and special to wait six months in Africa, so she petitioned the court to waive the requirement. Now as it turns out, she's too busy to return to Malawai for the court hearing to finalize the adoption.

This offends me, as an adoptive parent, because of the complete disrespect and arrogance she showed by even wanting the courts to change the rules for her. To not come back for the hearing only compounds the sheer audacity of that woman. You just don't walk into another country, throw money around, and make everyone else change the laws for you.

However, I am concerned that this sets a precedent for other people, with nefarious motives. There are plenty of very wealthy pedophiles that would also throw money around to bring home a child. And since the six month waiting period was waived for one person, why not another?

Finally, the past situation where children from Chad were being trafficked to France while being passed off as Darfur refugees also is worth mentioning. This is another way that the existing laws were bypassed (or attempted to be bypassed) and they were prosecuted. I'm sure these were well meaning, but extremely ignorant people, but I had no problem seeing them prosecuted.

Anyway, as to the future of domestic adoptions, if you're referring to foster care, I don't think International adoption is taking away from that. People choose not to adopt from foster care often due to the special needs of the children, which the parents may not be able to meet. If I.A. was not possible, I doubt you'd see an increase in foster care adoptions. Just less adoptions in general. As to the population, it's minimal. Compared to other immigration, birth rate, let alone illegal immigration, the increase in the US population due to IA is minimal. And economy, again, most of the costs for IA is spent on the US side, not the foreign side. Plus add in the lifetime expenses of raising more children, which easily compensates for the money spent on the foreign side of the process.

Adoption, whether in this country or not, is a good thing for everybody.