This is the rhetorical question I read on page 26 of Erin Siegal's book, Finding Fernanda.  This question was asked by a real (non-fictional) mother.  I found myself unable to read much further, as the answer to this question made me wonder how many times religion was used to excuse corrupt behavior.

Hello my name's Ashley i'm an american citizen who married a brazilian citizen. My husband is from curitiba,Brazil all his life we thought his adoptive "mom" legally adopted him little did we know he was a black market baby. Gloria Levy came from Isreal to usa in the 60's she had 2 illegal abortions causing infections on her fallopian tubes so she couldn't have biological children, she however lied to anyone who asked her why she couldn't have kids she would say "i don't know."  In 1984 she flew from Los Angelos,CA to Curitiba,Brazil to buy a baby.

Christianity Today published a clever response to Kathryn Joyce's article, The Evangelical Adoption Crusade, published in The Nation, last week.

This week the Department of State put out the following question on their blog:

How can the international community best ensure that adoptions are transparent, and that the rights of adopted children, birth families, and adoptive families are protected?

It is good to see the Department of State is looking for input, though the assurances being looked for can only be appreciated when realizing adoption is a business and has been around for more than 100 years.

When late March we wrote an update about the businesses of Seymour Kurtz, we could not have foreseen how quickly the information we presented would be outdated. Almost immediately after the publication we heard that Kurtz' offices had allegedly been raided by the FBI and later this summer we got news his agencies "Easter House", "Adoption World" and "Birth Hope" had finished operations.

While we can never be sure Seymour Kurtz and his adoption agencies will be really out of business until the man is dead and buried, today news arrived that indicate his organization is no longer in business.

NEXT SHOW

Sunday March 30, 2008

9:00 PM (EST)

www.theadoptionshow.com

Join friends in the chat room after the show!

This segment's guest:

JAYMIE FRIEDMAN FREDERICK

Jaymie surrendered her son to adoption in 1975 and reunited with him in 1996. The adoption was done through well-known lawyer and baby broker of New York City, Stanley Michelman. Jaymie has been following the practices of Michelman for 30 years.

While Baby Broker Watch already has a great page on Seymour Kurtz and we don't want to rehash too much of what is already written there, there was still an urge to find more about the current state of his activities. When perusing the website of the Georgia State Department to look up information about another agency, we accidentally stumbled upon his Golden Link Foundation and decided to look into the published documents.