Pound Pup Legacy

Two days ago we started the nominations for the Annual Demons of Adoption Awards for the fourth time in succession. As much as I like that we do this every year, and how much I love to point out the "bad guys" in adoption, I've also come to realize that the adoption system itself is most evil of all and that pointing out a few "bad guys" is not going to solve the ethical problems related to adoption.

This week, Goldman Sachs reported an 82% drop in earnings, while at the same time Bethany Christian Services reported a 66% increase in the number of inter-country adoptions performed. Both organizations are doing god's work in their own special way, yet Bethany Christian Services seems to have outscored the finance behemoth in success rate this year.

Over the years we have posted extensively about abuse in adoptive families, and within our archives collected information about many different abuse cases. Abuse in adoptive families comes in many shapes and forms, ranging from neglect to deprivation, sexual abuse, exploitation and physical abuse.

When looking at the physical abuse cases, there seem to be two patterns that often emerge. Children, especially babies, beaten or shaken violently, and cases related to so-called "discipline".

When we started Pound Pup Legacy in 2006, we felt there was a need for a website for those adoptees that experienced the dark side of adoption. For the longest time we were a marginal website at best, but we always had members willing to share their personal experience.

Since the ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption on April 1, 2008, and the closure of Guatemala, around that same time, inter-country adoption has changed the inter-country adoption landscape significantly.

December 31, 2009 the litigation team in Masha Allen's case against the agencies involved in her adoption by Matthew Mancuso, filed a Motion for Leave to File Amended Complaint. This motion for the first time makes direct allegations against Adagio Health, a health care provider in Pennsylvania, which also performs adoption services.

On January 6, the blog My Journey to Alyssa presented Alyssa's Story, a post which tells about an adoption in Pakistan allegedly performed through Adoption Ark. I will not rehash the story here, Linda, the owner of the blog, has gone at great length to present the entire story, so I refer readers to her blog to get acquainted with the story.

Over the last two years we have written extensively about the case of Masha Allen, culminating in the article The untold story of Masha Allen, which attempts to explain the circumstances of both Masha's adoption by Matthew Mancuso and her adoption by Faith Allen.

This week the U.S. State Department presented the figures of intercountry adoption for FY 2009, and for the fifth year in a row the numbers have dropped.

Here are the total number of inter-county adoptions for the last 6 years:

2004: 22,990
2005: 22,734
2006: 20,680
2007: 19,609
2008: 17,475
2009: 12,753

For years adoption advocates and adoption agencies have used the claim that there are 143 million orphans in the world, based upon an estimate made by Unicef, to further the agenda of inter-country adoption.

Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS). a trade association of adoption service providers, claims: Deprived of a basic of human right, these unknown children are denied the nurturing needed to thrive as children and later as members of our global society.