One of the misconceptions about adoption (in this case from Haiti) is that Americans are "stealing/removing the future generation" of leaders from the country.
I have noticed multiple reports of this post EQ on major news outlets (Anderson Cooper repeated similar rhetoric in one report he did from a PAP orphanage) and have heard this argument bandied about by many folks that lack facts. So lets take a look at some facts:
In 2007- 191 children left Haiti to become Americans
In 2008- 301
In 2009- 330
After the EQ 2010 - approximately 900 children left on Humanitarian Parole, seeking adoption and citizenship in the USA.
Take into account that most children stay with their families and are never abandoned. Then estimate that there are somewhere near 500,000 children institutionalized in Haiti. If 300 leave - or - even if ten times that many leave in a year - no one is removing the next generation. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The only thing happening is that a microscopic little band-aid is being placed on a massive gushing wound.
This idea that institutions produce the future leaders of a nation is curious to me anyway.
Families offer stability and love. Love and stability create confidence. Confidence creates future leaders.
Changing the argument into something other than truth is the way to advance an anti-adoption agenda, it does not change the real statistics. If we're going to allow that argument any time or attention, we should also stop that man above from having so many of the world's cows.
