New Fertility Study (infant, options, parents, foster care)
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“When it comes to discussions about declining fertility, conservatives tend to “get it” right away: not having a next generation, or having a far smaller one, will cause problems down the line. In my experience, progressives tend to be more hesitant: is this a back-door argument to keep women out of the workplace?”
That’s kind of ironic but they are getting “warm”.
It’s been national policy, at a level higher than what Congress was privy to (much less voted on); to utilize everything from indoctrination in public schools (their words, not mine) to mass media to put women into the workplace ... For the purpose of lowering fertility rates. This occurred in 1974, in Bucharest, during the World Population Conference. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pcaab500.pdf
In 1978, a massive, decade long research project was begun; The US Collaborative Review of Sterilization, which was actually studying the impact of “family planning” on womens health. The link is for an abstract of just one of the many reports spawned. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9469283
Not that this information was made readily available to women but even after confounding the data to death, some of the results were not too stellar.
As this relates to international adoptions? If anyone checked the first link provided; they will notice that it is titled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests”.
The US fertility rate is only a small portion of the policy. The main goal was to initiate an incentive based system to encourage 3rd world countries to dramatically lower their birth rates by the year 2000. Incentives provided by us (& David Rockefeller, among others), via USAID.
When factoring in that even in the poorest of poor nations, they still consider that “Our children are our greatest natural resource”; a mass exodus of kids might not be what these countries want right now.
“When it comes to discussions about declining fertility, conservatives tend to “get it” right away: not having a next generation, or having a far smaller one, will cause problems down the line. In my experience, progressives tend to be more hesitant: is this a back-door argument to keep women out of the workplace?”
That’s kind of ironic but they are getting “warm”.
It’s been national policy, at a level higher than what Congress was privy to (much less voted on); to utilize everything from indoctrination in public schools (their words, not mine) to mass media to put women into the workplace ... For the purpose of lowering fertility rates. This occurred in 1974, in Bucharest, during the World Population Conference. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pcaab500.pdf
In 1978, a massive, decade long research project was begun; The US Collaborative Review of Sterilization, which was actually studying the impact of “family planning” on womens health. The link is for an abstract of just one of the many reports spawned. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9469283
Not that this information was made readily available to women but even after confounding the data to death, some of the results were not too stellar.
As this relates to international adoptions? If anyone checked the first link provided; they will notice that it is titled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests”.
The US fertility rate is only a small portion of the policy. The main goal was to initiate an incentive based system to encourage 3rd world countries to dramatically lower their birth rates by the year 2000. Incentives provided by us (& David Rockefeller, among others), via USAID.
When factoring in that even in the poorest of poor nations, they still consider that “Our children are our greatest natural resource”; a mass exodus of kids might not be what these countries want right now.
With respect to this, the largest issue is that we have a massive overpopulation problem. The earth can support roughly 3 billion people, given current expectations about lifestyles (i.e. air travel, smartphones, etc). We will be at 9 billion at mid-century. Something is going to give.
It's really a short term outlook to be worried about subsequent generations taking care of the older generations. Overall, we have too many people.
Of course, this leads to policy-makers attempting to insure that we have only certain kinds of people being born, and wanting to limit those whom they feel are undesirable.
People often, somehow read that word into something where it simply isn't there. It is a reading comprehension issue.
I literally bolded it in the post where I quoted it. So maybe you should be careful about throwing around claims about "reading comprehension" since we occasionally miss things, right?
I admit I am impressed. I cannot say I ever had a desire to visit the Philippines.
However, I've asked this question before and I interpret the silence I've always gotten as an admission by a large number of people that they have never contributed.
The word "all" is a word that many of us need to be careful using.
I appreciate you walking it back. We all overstate occasionally. To be honest, if circumstance had not brought my family there first hand it is unlikely we would be invested. You care more about what you see first hand and all of that.
I admit I am impressed. I cannot say I ever had a desire to visit the Philippines.
However, I've asked this question before and I interpret the silence I've always gotten as an admission by a large number of people that they have never contributed.
The word "all" is a word that many of us need to be careful using.
You likely get silence, because the question is, frankly, stupid. I could sell all my assets and give every penny I own to NGOs in other countries, but that wouldn't meaningfully change most of the conditions. UNICEF is not a good organization to support because they spend most of the money on administrative costs and political programs that aren't especially effective. They did a lot of work to end adoptions but proposed nothing to change the conditions that created the pool of children who were offered for adoption.
There needs to be significant change on a massive scale to improve the lives of children. The single most effective aspect of improving children's lives is the education of women. Other issues are women's equality, a lessening of extreme income inequality, and free access to birth control. If you improve those things, every other metric improves.
I give as much money as I can to organizations that provide direct assistance to impoverished people. But that alone does not really have a lot to do directly with adoption. Again, the biggest cause of problems in the adoption world is the excess demand, which creates financial incentives for bad actors to do bad things.
The question of thoughts on adoption versus financial support to organizations sets up a false dichotomy. The reality is that there are lots of people who adopt or have some kind of connection to the adoption world, as well as people who don't adopt but see the problems that exist who do give significant support to organizations (often small organizations who might not be well-known). It just doesn't always come up in discussions. Often when the conversation is specifically about adoption, there is first a significant hurdle in clearing away the rainbows and unicorns fantasies that exist in the general population before a realistic discussion can ensue. Then the "why don't you give money to help the poor?" is thrown out not as some meaningful, earnest question, but as a veiled accusation that the person questioning adoptions or pointing out the ugly parts of it is somehow complicit, hypocritical, or otherwise untrustworthy.
I am very pro-adoption and am an adoptive parent myself. My husband and I adopted in our late 20's. I do remember having a discussion with another adoptive parent my age at the time. She became angry at me for suggesting to her that the needs of the child should be considered first and above all, even if that meant that we might be rejected in favor of someone else. Amazing to me, still.
Then the "why don't you give money to help the poor?" is thrown out not as some meaningful, earnest question, but as a veiled accusation that the person questioning adoptions or pointing out the ugly parts of it is somehow complicit, hypocritical, or otherwise untrustworthy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
And yet, on virtually every abortion thread I've ever been on, the "progressives" ask, "How may of you Christians have adopted a child?".
Different sides of the same coin. Anti-adoption people criticize pro-adoption Christians by demanding to know how many kids they have adopted. And pro-adoption people (Christian or otherwise) criticize anti-adoption people by demanding to know how much money they give to child-welfare charities. The purpose, on both sides, is to attempt to reveal supposed hypocrisy on the other side.
But the fact is, the great majority of people will never adopt someone, no matter how much they may favor the practice. And the majority of people will never (or rarely) give to child-welfare charities, no matter how much they want to improve child welfare. There are many, many valid reasons to not give to a particular charity, or not adopt someone. It would be nice if these decisions could be accepted without the zealots on both sides accusing the other side of hypocrisy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chicagoliz
Hmm, well I don't know which "progressives" you were talking to. In many cases,we'd be better off if the so-called Christians did not adopt children. There is a huge push in many Christian sects to adopt children for Jesus. The parents deem the children insufficiently grateful and abuse them, beat them, starve them, kill them, abandon them, have them sent to prison, or ship them back to their countries of origin with no money or supervision, with their citizenship status having been terminated. So, anyone pushing "Christians" to adopt children should have their head examined.
That's quite the serious accusation there. Yes, I know that such things have happened, and that they have been perpetrated by professing Christians. But the way you word this, it implies that it is a common occurrence among Christians. If that is your belief, I'd welcome any supporting documentation you could provide. Any reputable sources will take into account such variables as percentages of abusive adoptive parents who are Christian, as compared with percentages of abusive adoptive parents who are not Christian, which in turn should be compared with percentages of abusive biological parents (Christian and non), with comparative rates of abuse between adoptive and non-adoptive parents when factored by the overall proportions of these groups. And so on.
Saying "Christians adopt kids and then abuse them" is sensationalist. Saying "Christians make up "X" percentage of the population but "Y" percentage of adoptive families, and commit "Z" percentage of documented abuse cases" would be more helpful to understand the nature of the problem, in context of the larger picture.
Different sides of the same coin. Anti-adoption people criticize pro-adoption Christians by demanding to know how many kids they have adopted. And pro-adoption people (Christian or otherwise) criticize anti-adoption people by demanding to know how much money they give to child-welfare charities. The purpose, on both sides, is to attempt to reveal supposed hypocrisy on the other side.
But the fact is, the great majority of people will never adopt someone, no matter how much they may favor the practice. And the majority of people will never (or rarely) give to child-welfare charities, no matter how much they want to improve child welfare. There are many, many valid reasons to not give to a particular charity, or not adopt someone. It would be nice if these decisions could be accepted without the zealots on both sides accusing the other side of hypocrisy.
I don't know whether you're intentionally using a straw-man argument here, or whether you just misread the posts. It isn't pro-adoption versus anti-adoption, but the issue of pro-choice people who argue that anti-choice people should adopt. This is an entirely inappropriate argument, and the two issues should always remain entirely separate.
Quote:
That's quite the serious accusation there. Yes, I know that such things have happened, and that they have been perpetrated by professing Christians. But the way you word this, it implies that it is a common occurrence among Christians. If that is your belief, I'd welcome any supporting documentation you could provide. Any reputable sources will take into account such variables as percentages of abusive adoptive parents who are Christian, as compared with percentages of abusive adoptive parents who are not Christian, which in turn should be compared with percentages of abusive biological parents (Christian and non), with comparative rates of abuse between adoptive and non-adoptive parents when factored by the overall proportions of these groups. And so on.
Saying "Christians adopt kids and then abuse them" is sensationalist. Saying "Christians make up "X" percentage of the population but "Y" percentage of adoptive families, and commit "Z" percentage of documented abuse cases" would be more helpful to understand the nature of the problem, in context of the larger picture.
If you read through the entire thread, you will see where I have recommended sources for further reading.
That's quite the serious accusation there. Yes, I know that such things have happened, and that they have been perpetrated by professing Christians. But the way you word this, it implies that it is a common occurrence among Christians. If that is your belief, I'd welcome any supporting documentation you could provide. .
There is a post on this very board with someone asking how you could buy a baby for $50 in India.
The abuses and the child trafficking are very real. It's wrong to deny it. Gravely wrong. And many Christians abuse their adopted children although it's hard to establish real numbers because a lot of abuse flies under the radar. But there have been documented cases of Christians who beat or starved their adopted children to death following the teachings of the "Michael Pearl Christian ministry".
And I agree with that poster. Christians in general seem heavily obsessed with international adoption to the point where it's almost a mental illness.
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