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INFERTILITY   ADOPTION   POST-ADOPTION   FAMILY TREE   Adoption Resource Central    Heart of Adoption Articles to inspire   You can order Family Helper publications		"Adopt-a-Minefield" slogan trivializes adoption BY ROBIN HILBORN, Family Helper editor
		(June 6, 2000) Catherine Clute of Chester, N.S. read in the June 6 National Post about the "Canadian Adopt-a-Minefield" program. She wrote a letter to the newspaper, to Ontario's Lieutenant-Governor, Hilary Weston, who launched the program, and emailed the Canadian Landmine Foundation through their web site. She wrote: "Are the fundraisers at the Canadian Landmine Foundation unaware of the impact of words or just really that insensitive? I noticed an item in the June 6 National Post which announced the Canadian launch of the "adopt-a-minefield" program which will allow "individuals, groups, and corporations to sponsor the de-mining of specific minefields." While this is a laudable goal, adoption is a permanent loving way to build a FAMILY, not something one does on a whim, by contributing a little bit of cash, to a section of highway or certainly not to a minefield! To refer to such a campaign as an adoption, trivializes the bonds created by adoptive families, creates confusion for children who joined their real, permanent, forever families this way, and is highly insulting. I for one, will not be contributing to this campaign and urge other families touched by adoption to do the same, until they rename this program." Robin Hilborn adds that they could have chosen a more appropriate name, such as Sponsor Minefield Cleanup, Clear-a-Mine Campaign, or Befriend a Minefield. (On the other hand, I thought we wanted to get rid of minefields, not adopt them.) For more, see Canadian Landmine Foundation, www.canadianlandmine.com ________________________________________ You may reproduce this item with the credit: "Source: Family Helper (www.familyhelper.net)"