Not exactly ethics...but still on my heart

International adoption is not the answer. It won't stop poverty. It won't stop children from becoming orphans. It won't stop AIDS. It is a stop-gap method of giving a handful of the world's most vulnerable children permanency, care, and love. I'm speaking of this issue from a political/world view here--not from the view of we adoptive parents who also have the privilege of being able to bring one of these children into our family's out of love and our own selfish desire to grow a family.

I struggle with this from time to time. When I'm not struggling with it, it's because I choose not to let myself go there. Are we adoptive parents going through programs that are committed to keeping biological families together if possible? Are we going through programs that support and encourage domestic adoption within the foreign country? Are we going through programs that address social issues within the country that could make a difference in the over-all orphan crisis of that country? If not, what are we doing to address that as individuals?

I know an HIV+ child and I'm heartbroken for her. Of course there are millions of HIV+ children in Africa, that are now orphaned because AIDS took their parents. But this little girl.......*I* have met this little girl. I have held this little girl. I have caressed her hair and kissed her cheek. All of the sudden the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in Africa are personal.

This little girl's family loves her. They want to care for her and give her medicine for the HIV, but they cannot. Who could afford that? $35 could be a month's salary to this family--they don't have it for life-saving medication. So they are forced to think about giving this child to an orphanage. Maybe they can help? Problem is that 98% of orphanages in Ghana can't afford the medication any better than the original family can. And they can't give the girl for adoption because of religious convictions.

What are we doing for family's like these? This is a child who has a family who loves her. This is a child who could have a much longer life with anti-retro-viral medication and close medical followup. This is a child who could have grand babies if she were born in the U.S. But instead her life is melting away like cube of ice on hot pavement. Fast. Without ceasing. It will be gone before long.

But if this child's family was given $35 a month for her medicine, would it be used for that? Every month? What about when there isn't enough rice to eat? Medicine or food? An impossible choice.

Even if an existing aide program was found that could administer the drugs for free...is the family literate? Do they have a watch so that they know when to give the meds each day? Do they have the taxi or tro-tro money to take the child to the hospital?

I sit here sometimes late at night and go round and round with scenarios like these. HIV is on my heart right now. That little girl is on my heart right now. But another day it could be about keeping families together by providing food, or counseling, or....

In the end what are we left with? International adoption. I do not believe that the primary motive for international adoption should be to "save" a child. Parents need to want to love a child...to feel that their family isn't complete without that child. At the same time, international adoption does save these children. If not from AIDS, then from prostitution, or slavery, or child abuse, or a life without one single attachment to another human being.

We're saving just such a tiny percentage. And really, wouldn't our child have been better "saved" if they were somehow able to grow up with their original family, in their original country, without the trauma that occurred when they were yanked from everything they knew? Except where abuse is involved, I believe this to be true.

International adoption helps to alleviate the orphan crisis. But what are we doing to help eliminate it? It has to go beyond international adoption and supporting international adoption programs. We must go deeper. We've gotta go where it hurts to go and ask ourselves how we could have helped to keep our own adopted children with their original families. If you could step back in time would you do that for your child? [A lot of us wouldn't. That's where our selfishness comes in.] But can we step up and find ways to keep the next child from becoming an orphan?

Anita