Why Does Anderson Cooper Hate Me So Much?

Hola Everyone,

My name is Zoe Elizabeth and I am 7 months old. My mom and dad say I'm "wicked cute". The word wicked confuses me a bit but my dad says it's just Maine slang for "really, really cute". Ayuh I say! So, I currently live in Guatemala City, Guatemala but would really like to go home to my new mom and dad in Maine. Unfortunately "I can't get theah frum heeah" due to a political fiasco.

Below is a letter my dad wrote on my behalf to this guy Anderson Cooper who works at a place called CNN. My dad obviously loves me a lot to waste so much of his time on an obviously incompetent journalist like Anderson Cooper. I get the feeling this Anderson guy would rather let me die of starvation on the streets of Guatemala than to help my friends & I go home to our new families in the United States!

Enjoy!

Dear Mr. Cooper,

My wife and I had a chance to see your piece on Guatemalan adoptions last week. To say that it made us nauseous and sick to our stomachs would be an under statement. We were not however convulsing from the your portrayal of the situation in Guatemala but rather your misleading, divisive, dishonest and abhorrent representation of the current situation. CNN has the resources to do this story justice, and to actually get the fact straight, but you clearly prefer to sell "sensationalism" even when it comes at the cost of the innocent & beautiful children of Guatemala.

My wife and I are currently in process with a Guatemalan adoption for our amazing daughter Zoe Elizabeth. Little Zoe is the most beautiful baby we have ever seen, don’t all parents say that, and she’s done nothing to deserve the treatment you and your accomplice Mr. Whitbeck gave her or her country the other night. Zoe is real: http://www.pbase.com/zoe_elizabeth she is not some CNN or UNICEF statistic and she deserves better. She certainly deserves more than the one sided, slanted, anti-Guatemalan adoption piece you guys did the other night!

My wife and I chose to adopt from Guatemala, and specifically not from the US, because we wanted to save a child from one of the poorest, poverty & crime ridden countries on the face of the planet. In our minds any child born in the US has at least some chance while children born in Guatemala have virtually NO chance. We never did pursue a biological child of our own and instead decided to give a child from a third world country a chance or lottery ticket if you will.

I grew up with an adopted sister from Columbia so I clearly understand the process. Sue is now 34 years old and a very successful Pharmacist with her own child, happy life and a loving husband. I cringe at the thought of where my sister would be today if my parents had not adopted her from Columbia in the 70’s. Perhaps if news organizations like CNN were around in the early seventies I may have never had the chance to know and love my sister.

Below you will see that I have taken a few of your direct quotes from the TV segment & blog and given you a realistic look at how the adoption process actually works. It’s a long read trust me! It could have been a lot shorter had you guys not blown it so badly!

Please do take the time to read this because I’m sure some of your competitors will. My wife and I are so disgusted with you two & CNN that we are forwarding this letter to not only you and Mr. Whitbeck and anyone at CNN we can email, but also every media outlet we can find. Hopefully someone will read this, step up to the plate, and tell the truth about the current situation in Guatemala. Here we go…

Anderson Cooper 360 Quote:
"For many years, Guatemala has been a place of relatively uncomplicated adoptions for American parents."

Really that’s a huge surprise to my wife and I! Uncomplicated are you guys serious? My wife and I specifically chose Guatemala over ALL other countries, including the US, due to the safe guards in place and the multiple layers of checks and balances. To help you out with your so-called "investigative journalism" I have included some information below that you obviously missed in your "thorough" & "in-depth" dissection of the Guatemala adoption system:

1. The birth mother and baby must submit to a DNA test. These tests are administered by a US Embassy approved physician, in Guatemala, and then sent to US labs, not Guatemalan labs, for analysis. At the time of the test, with the physician and a social worker present, a thumb print of the mother and baby is also taken. A photograph of the mother and baby is snapped and placed into the baby’s file. If the DNA test results of the birth mother does not match that of the child, the adoption does not & will not proceed.
2. Since the DNA test inception, in 1998, less than 0.6% of US adoption cases have had a negative DNA match. With such an extremely low rate of negative DNA matches your claims of "child trafficking" and "baby selling" clearly need more need more research and or evidence.
3. In 1999 UNICEF reviewed 90 randomly selected adoption cases for their investigative ILPEC paper. After a thorough investigation of these 90 RANDOMLY SELECTED cases UNICEF could not find even ONE case of a biological birth mother who had been COERCED, FORCED or PAID to relinquish her child. Even with their own data visible & available to the public UNICEF, aided by the likes many in the willing media, continue making these unsubstantiated claims of mass corruption and child trafficking to push their underlying political agenda that favors a society of uni-culturalism and is blatantly against inter-country adoption.
4. The social workers in Guatemalan adoption cases are employed by the government and randomly assigned to each case, by the government, a process set in place, and designed to avoid corruption and smoke out what you call "child trafficking" or "baby selling". It is very clear, if you actually look into it, that this system is NOT entirely run by private sector lawyers or notaries like you spin it.
5. The birth mother is required to sign off, in person, on the in-process adoption, FOUR times during the case in front of government chosen and assigned social workers and or a notary. There is not one other country that I know of, and we conducted very in-depth research before deciding on Guatemala, that requires the birth mother to sign of on the adoption, in front of Government sanctioned employees on four separate occasions. If you find one please let us know!
6. A social worker or notary who has been appointed by the Guatemalan government to facilitate the interview and relinquishment signatures spends considerable time interviewing the birth mother. These social workers and notary’s work under the Guatemalan family court system or the PGN. The entire process, after a birth mother is matched with a lawyer to help facilitate her child’s adoption, is 100% scrutinized by the Guatemalan Government. The birth mother to child matching, as referenced above, regarding DNA & the four signatory and interview sessions is all being done under the watching eyes of the Guatemalan government and is not left entirely up to the private sector lawyers or notaries as your piece suggests and implies.
7. To ensure that a child was not switched after the initial DNA test, the child is given a second and final DNA test! This test is given only after the adoption has received final approval by the PGN. The PGN or Procuraduria General de la Nacion is Guatemala’s version of the US Attorney Generals Office. This second test is designed to cover all bases and avoid corruption and baby switching. This second test is again sent to US labs for analysis & not some so called "corrupt" lab in Guatemala’s "private sector" run by notaries or lawyers. If this final DNA test comes up negative the process stops!
8. You failed to even make mention of the fact that in many Guatemalan adoptions the adoptive parents are often given the option to actually meet the birth mother! How many countries currently aligned with the US for adoptions offer or allow this happen? If these adoptions were so corrupt, as you have insinuated, do you really think we would have been offered the opportunity to meet Zoe’s birth mother?

Nice job so far on the reporting guys? I’m not even through the first sentence of the article and you have missed no less that eight major, yet very important points to make your biased, one-sided case, against Guatemalan adoptions! Let’s continue dissecting the article and see if you did any better.

Anderson Cooper 360 Quote:
"This is our heritage, our future," said Carmen Wennier, head of Guatemala's Social Welfare bureau, who has criticized the adoption system." & "Casa Quivira was the last stop on an assembly line," Wennier told CNN. "They had the final product and they had to sell it at the best price."

Wow that’s a well thought out source! Bravo! That must have been a real hard quote to get and you guys really earned your money. Here’s the problem I have as an adoptive parent. You chose to use the head of Guatemala’s "Social Welfare Bureau" to bolster these slanted and vastly one-sided points?

Adoptions to foreign countries inherently, and by their sheer nature, make Carmen Wennier look bad. Mrs. Wennier can’t support the children of her own country and this is not necessarily her fault. Unfortunately this chain of, or lack of a chain of events, forces the poverty stricken birth mothers to seek out alternatives such as foreign adoptions. Mrs. Wennier, I’m certain, is justifiably angry at her own system. I wonder why? I’m sure Mrs. Wennier ultimately cares deeply for her country, and the children, but her hands are tied and her government is clearly broken and bankrupt. Sixty eight percent of children in Guatemala under age 6 live in poverty (World Bank, 2002), over three million Guatemalan children suffer from severe malnutrition, to the point of growth stunting (UNICEF), & secondary education is non-existent, NADA, not even there, in 58% of the municipalities (UNICEF).

The children who fall between the cracks are not necessarily Mrs. Wennier's fault, she has no money, but the fingers get pointed at her regardless. Put your self in her shoes. American families save children from poverty, crime, malnutrition and destitution and she does nothing because she physically just does not have the resources. Any way you slice it inter-country adoptions indirectly make her & the Guatemalan government look like a failures. I’m sure Mrs. Wennier is under tremendous pressure by her superiors who are reportedly accepting bribe money from organizations like UNICEF to shut down foreign adoptions. It’s no wonder, and no big surprise why Mrs. Wennier lashes out at inter-country adoptions with her politically motivated statements. Shame on you Mr. Cooper, and your accomplice Mr. Whitbeck, for seeking her out as a credible source and shame on CNN for allowing these sorts of misleading tactics to continue at the cost of innocent children.

I think a more logical approach would be for you & Mr. Whitbeck to do an "investigative report" on Guatemala’s non-existent social welfare system & what will happen to the 5000+/- children currently in process when Jan of 2008 rolls around. You could tie it in with a story on the reported UNICEF bribe money, being offered to Guatemalan government officials, in an attempt to keep the children of Guatemala in Guatemala to prevent foreign adoptions and satisfy UNICEF’s vision of a uni-cultural society.

I’m not even going to comment on Casa Quivera. The thought of the government corruption involved in that case makes me sick to my stomach. Which government official has the gun pointed at Mrs. Weinnier's head to force those comments about Casa Quivera from her mouth? Now that would be an informative story! It's just too bad CNN does not have the nerve to tell it!

Anderson Cooper 360 Quote:
While adoptive parents in the United States undergo rigorous screening, adoptions in Guatemala are processed under a notary system that allows lawyers and judges to place children for adoption.

Come on guys! That’s the most misleading agenda driven statement yet! ALL US parents wishing to adopt ANY child either domestic or foreign go through the same exact amount of US paperwork with the exception of the additional paperwork required for the international part of the process. So in reality foreign adoptive parents actually go through MORE US based screening than domestic adoptive parents do. In other words if we adopt from Guatemala and our neighbors adopt from the US the US end of the paperwork is EXACTLY the same! The difference is that our US paperwork is then sent to Guatemala and scrutinized by the government officials of a SECOND country. This entire second investigation makes international adoptions clearly more invasive and thorough. This is 180 degrees out of phase with what you present as the reality.

So your statement "While adoptive parents in the United States undergo rigorous screening" was intended to achieve exactly what? If it was to prove incompetence you succeeded! So why is it that my wife and I find your choice of words so suspicious? Oh yeah I know why it’s probably because you apparently have some underlying agenda that involves a much more important issue for CNN. My guess is this agenda involves selling "sensational" news to reap "sensational" amounts of money from selling high dollar add space. Based on your statements, it is boldly apparent, that you don’t have a clue about how the Guatemalan side of the inter-country adoption process works. I will lay it out for you, in English, so it’s easy for you to get your biased fingers around.

The Guatemalan side of the adoption process:

1. Relinquishment of the child: A birth mother who wishes can seek out a notary or go through an intermediary to initiate relinquishment. The paperwork is then set in motion by a different lawyer to pursue adoption. The mother then provides evidence of her identity through government issued documents in the form of a photo ID card & a birth certificate. A thumb print of the birth mother is also required. The birth mom then has to produce the child’s birth certificate, proof of identity & hospital records including the thumb print taken at birth. This critical information becomes part of the child’s official adoption file. At this point custody of the child has been handed over to the lawyer and the lawyer then places the baby/child into foster care or an orphanage while awaiting the adoption processing procedure to complete.
2. A Medical Exam: The child is examined by a pediatrician and receives all immunizations. The birth mom is also examined to rule out hepatitis, syphilis or HIV.
3. Referral: This is when we get the call from the lawyer saying they have a child for us to adopt. At this point we get the baby’s name, the mothers name, length, weight, head circumference, background of the mother and baby, blood types, the birth certificate and a picture of our future daughter or son. At this point we were already 7 months into this lengthy process. We obviously just don’t show up with 30k in hand and buy a child as you attempted to mislead your viewers into believing.
4. Power of Attorney: We then sign the POA officially accepting the referral and giving our lawyer the right to proceed on our behalf. It’s important to understand that the same lawyer can not represent you for both the relinquishment of the child and the adoption process. This safeguard is in place as a means and measure to prevent and curb fraud. We are now 9 months into the adoption process.
5. US Embassy Required DNA Test: Our own US Embassy began requiring this on 10/1/1998. After our Embassy reviews the documents of the child’s adoption case they approve a formal DNA test of both the mother and child. The birth mom and child are taken to one of only two US Embassy approved doctors to perform the official US required DNA testing. At this point thumb prints and a picture of the mother with the baby are taken. Those thumb prints are compared with those taken at the birth of the child as yet another step to confirm identity.
6. DNA Analysis: The DNA analysis is NOT performed in Guatemala but rather in the United States! Our very own US Embassy as well as the Guatemalan government monitors this entire process of matching the child to the mother, and document verification. Again this is not done under the private sector notary system as you two lead viewers to believe. The entire DNA process took over two months to complete so this is clearly not a case showing up at Wal*Baby with a check for 30K!
7. Registration of Adoptive Families Documents: This process translates our massive stack of US documents to Spanish through the use of a translation service. Our POA is also recorded with the government. Guatemala’s Minister of External Relations then examines and verifies this huge stack of paperwork so the process can move on. We are now at 11.5 months. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll note that all the private sector lawyers or notary’s have done, up until this point, is locate a child needing adoption and gather, process and ready documents for the many layers of GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT and SCRUTINY. This is NOT a system entirely run by notaries or lawyers in the private sector as you insinuate.
8. Family Court: Our lawyers submit our stack of paperwork and documentation to Guatemala’s Family Court System. During this process a Government appointed social worker interviews the birth mother. She is informed by the social worker that a) this adoption is irrevocable once complete b) she may never see the child after the adoption is final c) she will loose guardianship of her baby or child. The social worker then asks the mother her reasons for relinquishment and makes a decision as to whether the mother has done this of her free will and has fully granted her consent for this adoption without question. The government appointed social worker then writes her report, including in it the birth mothers reasons for relinquishment, and forwards the case back to the Guatemalan family court for approval by a judge. All the private sector lawyers have done here is gather the necessary paperwork to ready the file for the government run family court process.
9. Family Court Approval or Denial: At this point the family court either approves or fails the case. If the case is approved the birth mother is brought in for yet another interview, this time with a notary, and signs a second consent form re-confirming her position on the adoption. We don’t really know when we actually entered family court but suffice it to say it took quite a while between submitting our documents and getting word that DNA was complete and entering PGN
10. PGN: The PGN is Guatemala’s version of the US Attorney generals Office. This is the part where every document in the adoption case is scrutinized to the nth degree. In this process a PGN notary, or in other words, a Guatemalan Government employee, yes you heard correctly, this is not a private sector notary, combs through the documents for mistakes, errors or omissions. In a very, very high percentage of cases the notary finds a "kick out". A "kick out" from PGN must be addressed and then the file re-submitted. The adoption cases that make it through this very lengthy & thorough process, on the first try, with no "kick outs", is in the low single digits! The events, initiating a PGN "kick out" may be as minor as a spelling error, on any one of the hundreds of forms, or as serious as mistakes on the birth mother or child’s identity forms. My wife and I were recently "kicked out" because Zoe’s mom had, at some point, changed her name. We were not privy to the information or the details of this "kick out" so it could have been as simple as a missing marriage license but we just don’t know. Our case was re-submitted, with the proper documentation, by our attorneys after visiting the Civil Registry for the proper documents, but we still wait for a PGN sign off or what’s referred to as a "pink slip". We have been in PGN for almost three months and now may NEVER get our daughter thanks to UNICEF!
11. Adoption Decree: A notary preps the final documents of the adoption process called the Protocolo. At this point the birth mother is once again interviewed and signs yet another consent for the adoption to move forward.
12. Completion of the Protocolo: The final and completed Protocolo forms are submitted to the Archivo de Protocolo and the child, under Guatemalan law, is now officially and legally the child of the adoptive parents. We have no idea how log this process takes as we are still in PGN!
13. Passport and Civil registry: Our "private sector attorney", the official government oversight process is complete at this point, gathers the necessary paperwork to record the finalized adoption at the Civil Registry to secure a new birth certificate. This process changes the child’s surname to match that of the adoptive parents.
14. Guatemalan Passport: The attorney then takes the adoption documentation & new birth certificate to the passport office to secure a Guatemalan passport for the child where the child is once again finger and or thumb printed to confirm the identity one final time.
15. US Embassy: The paperwork and passport are now delivered to the US Embassy in Guatemala City where our attorney delivers the case work files, passport and the updated birth certificate. The US Embassy scrutinizes the documents and if everything is in order they will issue a temporary travel visa and a final approval.
16. US Embassy Interview: At this last step we, the adoptive parents, go before the US Embassy in person for a final interview and completion. This final interview is the point where the Embassy hand’s you the child’s visa so you can, after well over a year, or in some cases two or three, finally bring the child home!

So there it is, a condensed, summarized easy to understand format even for a CNN journalist. The actual process involves many more procedures, processes, intricate details and paperwork than anyone could imagine. To document every little detail of this process could fill a book.

It’s deceitful, disgusting and wrong how you two have trivialized & minimized such a lengthy process. It is especially insulting to hear you say the system is run by lawyers and notaries when the Guatemalan government is involved in almost every phase of this long arduous process. Does intentionally misleading viewers really increase ratings that much?

Statements like "there is little over sight", "Guatemala has been a place of relatively uncomplicated adoptions for American parents.", "adoptions in Guatemala are processed under a notary system that allows lawyers and judges to place children for adoption" are clearly dishonest, misleading, insulting and degrading to those of us who await our precious children!

This quote was your best yet "In Guatemala, birth mothers are required to sign a document in court in which they state they are relinquishing their child, but they are not interviewed by a judge as to their reasons." This statement is flat out deceptive and very, very offensive to any adoptive parents!

The birth mothers are most definitely interviewed and the reasons for relinquishment are discussed at length but just not personally with a judge. Talk about SPIN! Your point was to mislead people into thinking that birth mothers are never asked why they gave their baby up for adoption. By changing one word "judge" your statement becomes borderline factual! You guys truly are sick! Why would you expect a judge in Guatemala to interview a birth mother as to her physical, emotional, mental well being or financial decisions for relinquishment? The birth mother IS IN FACT INTERVIEWED by a Guatemalan government appointed social worker, as she should be. This is the exact type of work social workers are trained to do! Judges decide case law and uphold the laws of the country. They are not there to look into the psyches of impoverished Mayan woman. The documents from the birth mother interviews clearly state the reasons for relinquishment and are then sent to the Guatemalan family court system which is over seen by who else but judges.

Your statements above do not seem to be an issue of poor investigative fact checking but rather appear to be very clearly and cleverly designed to intentionally deceive! Sick, sick, sick!

Anderson Cooper 360 Quote:
Both Guatemalan and U.S. officials fear the system leads to practices such as paying birth mothers for children, or, some instances, using coercion.

You guys sent some of your finest investigative reporters to Guatemala with an apparent agenda. One need only examine your "babies for sale" and " child trafficking" sentiments plastered on screen during the Anderson Cooper 360 television segment to understand that your investigators perhaps went in with a their minds made up. Unfortunately for CNN your "investigative reporters" came up empty handed and produced only innuendo and misleading hints of mass corruption. Your in-depth investigation could not even produce one case of coercion, baby selling or trafficking yet you still plastered the words "child trafficking" for all to see even though, in the end, you produced no clear evidence of it. Shame on you!

No one is going to dispute Guatemala has its share of corruption but the adoption process in Guatemala has more safeguards in place, in our opinion as adoptive parents, than that of domestic US adoptions or just about any country on this planet. Sure there will be, and have been cases of corruption in the adoption process but there is NO 100% corruption proof government or private sector anywhere on this Earth.

Even news organizations have corrupt individuals as witnessed in the falsifying of documents in the Dan Rather case. If our own, ever powerful, US media outlets can be infiltrated by corrupt individuals than so can a small third world nations like Guatemala. If campaign finance corruption can sneak into US Senator Clinton’s Presidential campaign in the form of known fugitive Norman Hsu than it can get anywhere regardless of the amount of government oversight or lack there of. Just as corruption is not running rampant at CBS, or the Clinton campaign, adoption corruption, baby selling and or trafficking is also not running amok or the norm in Guatemala as you guys so merrily insinuated in your so called "investigative" report.

One can not assume or expect Guatemala, the US, China, the Philippine’s, Korea, Thailand, Cambodia or any of the other countries aligned with the US for inter-country adoption will ever be 100% corruption free. Our very close friends Jackie & David were scammed out of mid five figures by a US birth mother that apparently never even intended to give her baby up! This mother lied, and stole from them, through out her entire pregnancy. She took this money under the US adoption system, not Guatemala, via a US attorney to pay for her maternity medical bills and, in the end, both she and the attorney walked away with their money, the baby and neither got so much as a slap on the wrist!

Where there are humans and money there is always some level of corruption. We can only do what’s right to try to move forward in the process of making adoptions as safe and corruption free as possible. Taking a hard line UNICEF type stance towards minimizing and or ending inter-country adoptions solves nothing and may potentially leave 5000 Guatemalan children, including our daughter Zoe, living a tragic life on the streets of Guatemala with no social services to support or provide for them.

Anderson Cooper 360 Quote:
Both U.S. and Guatemalan officials say gaps in the regulation and the high sums of money at play - adoptions can cost up to $30,000 to complete -- may have created unintended incentives in a country where the U.S. State Department estimates 80 percent of the population lives in poverty.

The bottom line here is that in the end, after well over a years worth of work, a Guatemalan attorney might get paid, at best, $4000.00 out of our $20,000 country fee that we sent to Guatemala. This $4000.00 is often split as much as three ways due to the amount of people needed at different times to manage the adoption case. In many instances two lawyers or more will split or share a case. So I ask, where does all this money to pay off birth mothers and buy these alleged babies come from when there is very little money left over from our $20,000.00 country fee to even pay the attorney?

Many US lawyers can make more than $4000.00 per day yet it takes a Guatemalan attorney sometimes a year and a half or more to earn their $4000.00 then to only be split up two or three ways. My wife and I will spend close to $40,000.00 to complete Zoe’s adoption yet we only ever sent Guatemala $20,000.00. The rest of the money is spent right here is the good ole’ USA on a home study, I600A, notary’s, certifying documents, Fed-Ex and our travel to visit and pick up our daughter in Guatemala among the many, many other things involved in the adoption process. To boldly state that the Guatemalan fee is 30k intentionally misleads and is a flat out lie!

The nerve of you, Mr. Cooper, to insinuate that these lawyers are getting rich off adoptions physically sickens me. As you sit in your ivory tower at CNN I’d venture to guess you earned more money in that one episode of the Anderson Cooper 360 show than my Guatemalan lawyer will after working our case for 14+ months or more. Please keep in mind these lawyers actually live and work in Guatemala. They are not living in Greenwich, CT or the Hamptons like the spoiled kings you paint them to be with your cleaver yet deceitful word-smithing.

Anderson Cooper 360 Quote:
Several hotels in the city offer adoption packages and baby-friendly amenities to prospective adoptive parents. The couples stay there when they come to first see the babies while waiting for paperwork to be processed or to pick them up at the end of the adoption process.

So what exactly is your point? People like my wife and I need a place to stay when we travel to visit our child during this long and drawn out process. Oh wait I get it! The Marriott Guatemala City is obviously making piles of money off the adoption process too and this obviously offends you. Perhaps the Guatemalan government and UNICEF could over throw the Marriott & take it over thus removing any profit motive from the travel portion of the adoption process!

Anderson Cooper 360 Quote:
Guatemala police arrested Casa Quivira's lawyers and charged them with child abduction. No plea has yet been entered, but the agency's owners, American Cliff Phillips and his Guatemalan wife, Sandra Gonzalez, deny doing anything illegal.

It’s very tough to enter a plea when the government won’t tell you what you’re being charged with or officially charge you. There were 46 babies at that facility, and as you claim, the lawyers were supposedly charged with child abduction. So why is it that your cracker jack investigators could not find even one case of child abduction when the Guatemalan government claims that is what the raid was all about? Do you expect us to believe that your pal Carmen Wennier could not help you find these mysterious abducted children for you? What about the five babies that completed the adoption process while in government custody after the raid? Where are the interviews with those parents or the children’s birth mothers? This Casa Quivera situation is, in my opinion, political stunt designed to further some ones political agenda and timed perfectly for the November Guatemalan elections. If I had to guess I’d say this is why CNN produced no hard data to back up your disgusting claims of "mass corruption" "babies for sale" and "child trafficking"!

Anderson Cooper 360 Quote:
But proponents of stricter adoption guidelines in Guatemala said that even those tests are not sufficient. The Guatemalan Office of the Attorney General said it has 80 confirmed cases so far this year of adoption irregularities, including baby stealing and false DNA tests.

OK so it sounds like the safeguards are working! The DNA tests have caught offenders and they perhaps uncovered a baby stealing case. This is good news and shows the system is working! So with these 80 cases did you attempt to clarify what "adoption irregularities" are? The term adoption irregularities seems very, very vague. Could this be a missing document like a birth certificate that caused a failed or "irregular" case? Many Mayan children are delivered out side of hospitals thus acquiring no birth certificate. Unfortunately this makes them virtually un-adoptable unless you were to go through the very lengthy abandonment process! You make no mention of how many "baby stealing" or "false DNA tests" they uncovered yet you spin it to sound like majority of these 80 cases involved baby stealing and false DNA. No amount tests will ever be 100% sufficient and to think they will be is fantasy driven idealism. Let’s not forget that the only visible statistics, on false DNA tests, shows that only 0.6% of the DNA tests conducted are of a dishonest nature.

So guys are we going to throw the 5000 +/- innocent children, currently in process, back on the streets come Jan 1 or are you and your colleagues going to do the right thing and report on the UNICEF corruption and purported bribes currently taking place between UNICEF and government officials in Guatemala? If I were donating to UNICEF I would be outraged that my hard earned money was being squandered on government level bribes to further a political agenda. Don’t get me wrong UNICEF is a great organization and does lots of good but their position on inter-country adoptions clearly goes against "The Convention on the Rights of a Child" the same UN international guidelines they claim to be guided by. This behavior makes UNICEF's position on inter-country adoptions 100% unequivocally hypocritical! That UNICEF money is supposed to be for the children not for pushing a disastrous uni-cultural political platform in regards to foreign adoption! Don’t you think your viewers would be interested in hearing about UNICEF’s stance on inter-country adoptions and bribery?

Please think next time before you do a biased, misleading and fact-lacking story like this. The only ones who suffer are the children!

Regards,

Zoe's Dad
Maine