"What do you mean, you're going to adopt from Russia? What about all the kids in Milwaukee who need homes?" she demanded indignantly.

I should probably mention here that the agency I work for is a social services agency, which, as part of its duties, is responsible for handling special-needs adoptions in Milwaukee County -- a fact that may have something to do with some of my co-workers' rabid attitudes.

Nonetheless, I tend to feel that children in need of homes are children in need of homes whether they live in Milwaukee or Moscow.

"Who are you to turn your back on kids right here in our community to take in some kid abroad?" asked another co-worker.

I am, despite being a lawyer, an essentially polite person. I formulate nasty responses in my head but utter polite (OK, lame) demurrers. What I say is: "Well, we really like the Russian culture and the conditions over there in the orphanages are really horrible. We think it's a good alternative, although we haven't decided for sure yet."

What I want to say is: "Who are you, a person capable of biologically reproducing three kids, who has never known the heartbreak of infertility, to judge? Like everybody else, I just want a child who looks like me and talks like me and fits into my family -- just as if he or she was born into it. Is that a crime?"

I am not unsympathetic to the plight of kids with special needs who move from one foster home to another. I know that they need good homes and parents to love them. But is a child in a Russian orphanage any less worthy of a good home and loving parents just because he or she had the misfortune to be born there instead of here?

Apparently so.

Everybody, everywhere, not just at work, seems to have an opinion on international adoptions -- few of them favorable. In the past six months, I've heard hateful and irrational opinions from people I used to think of as intelligent, rational adults. I've been accused of racism. I've been accused of favoring "communists" over "red-blooded Americans." I've been accused of trying to "buy" a child.

Through it all I wonder why I've never heard anyone ask a pregnant woman why she chose to give birth rather than adopt a special-needs minority child. I wonder why I've never heard a pregnant woman or a father of six condemned for his or her "selfishness" in choosing to give birth rather than "give a home to a deserving Milwaukee kid."

And, while we are on the subject, why do people whose insurance companies pay thousands of dollars for them to give birth think that this expenditure doesn't constitute "buying a child" but paying adoption expenses somehow does?

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