Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 3: our super producer Bull Mission Control Decads. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. And we want to
Speaker 3: do something very important. At the top of tonight's exploration.
Speaker 3: We are talking about adoption, and we want to start
Speaker 3: off by saying adoption is an amazing thing. It can
Speaker 3: be a profound testament to the noble aspects of the
Speaker 3: human experiment. I was reading this old, this old quote
Speaker 3: from an amateur wrestler who later became President Abe Lincoln.
Speaker 4: I thought, you're gonna say, Jesse the Body venture though
Speaker 4: he didn't become president, he was just a governor.
Speaker 3: Well, well, there's this this concept in an inaugural speech
Speaker 3: that Lincoln makes about the better angels of our nature,
Speaker 3: and that that quote stays with me. I think it
Speaker 3: stays with a lot of us, and adoption is one
Speaker 3: of the true, real life examples of how people can
Speaker 3: be better than you would imagine them to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have several colleagues who have adopted, and we've
Speaker 4: kind of followed that trajectory from you know, the all
Speaker 4: the paperwork and the craziness that goes into it, and
Speaker 4: it really does require a lot of effort, can be
Speaker 4: very expensive and time consuming and ultimately disappointing for some
Speaker 4: who do not you know, actually get to the to
Speaker 4: the final stage. But it's a beautiful thing. Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Several of our colleagues have multiple children that they've adopted
Speaker 2: and you know, have raised children all like, all the way,
Speaker 2: all the way to adulthood.
Speaker 4: It is just to say that, like it is their child,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Because we get into this
Speaker 4: later in the show, but the idea of what adoption means,
Speaker 4: it is a lifelong pursuit simply because you know, it
Speaker 4: is giving all of yourself, you know, to a human
Speaker 4: being and the same way you would if it were
Speaker 4: your own flesh and blood.
Speaker 3: And this brings us to an astonishing moment right now.
Speaker 3: A lot of us listening along this evening may have
Speaker 3: been adopted, right may have adopted children into their families.
Speaker 3: It's a win win When it works, people who want
Speaker 3: nothing more than to be parents literally are saving the
Speaker 3: lives of children who want nothing more than to.
Speaker 4: Be part of a family. That's pretty cool, dude. My
Speaker 4: cousin is adopted and she's my cousin. It's something that
Speaker 4: never crosses my mind. You know, she is family through
Speaker 4: and through. There's no like second class nature to that relationship.
Speaker 3: So it's crucial that we say all of this at
Speaker 3: the very beginning because we are exploring an extremely sensitive subject.
Speaker 3: This episode is in no way meant to diminish nor
Speaker 3: disparage the beauty in that. We will have a We
Speaker 3: will have a future exploration of the foster care system,
Speaker 3: which we're going to bracket here. You got to understand,
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realist, the reason we're talking so positively about
Speaker 3: adoption when it works is because sometimes it doesn't. Tonight
Speaker 3: we are exploring the dark side of adoption. Here are
Speaker 3: the facts, all right. As we were saying earlier, we're
Speaker 3: throwing the word adoption around. What is it?
Speaker 2: Adoption is when a human being assumes all the responsibilities
Speaker 2: of a child that the biological parents would have according
Speaker 2: to the laws of wherever you're living, and it is
Speaker 2: a bit different than fostering. Maybe we should talk about
Speaker 2: the difference between adopting someone legally and then being a
Speaker 2: foster parent.
Speaker 4: In the US alone, tens of thousands of children are
Speaker 4: adopted each year, and that number becomes particularly impressive once
Speaker 4: we understand the regulations around who is allowed to adopt,
Speaker 4: along with the emotional and financial aspects of this relationship. Again,
Speaker 4: like I mentioned earlier, it is a significant expenditure for
Speaker 4: folks that are seeking to to do this kindness, you know,
Speaker 4: to another human being. It can take a very long time,
Speaker 4: and it can often be riddled with disappointment if things
Speaker 4: don't work out, despite the outlay of funds in order
Speaker 4: to participate in the process. So it is very significant
Speaker 4: in that respect, both emotionally and financially.
Speaker 3: And to Matt's earlier point here, the difference between fostering
Speaker 3: a human being and adopting a human beings, let's just
Speaker 3: get that, get that articulated really quick for sure.
Speaker 4: Just I mean fostering is more of a temporary sort
Speaker 4: of stop gap measure, whereas adopting is for the long haul.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the primary difference really to point
Speaker 2: to here when you choose to adopt, When when an
Speaker 2: adult human being or human beings choose to adopt, it
Speaker 2: is that legal taking on of all responsibilities in perpetuity.
Speaker 3: Filial responsibilities would be the you know, the the word
Speaker 3: for this with a tie on is filial rights and responsibilities.
Speaker 3: There are rights included in this as well, which is
Speaker 3: historically mission critical. Our pal Jacob Silverman, utter legend from
Speaker 3: our alma mater, How Stuff Works, describes adoption as a
Speaker 3: lifelong process, and I think that's an exceedingly accurate way
Speaker 3: to look at this. It's not it's not an on
Speaker 3: and off switch, you know, It's not a one afternoon
Speaker 3: in Burma kind of thing. The modern form of adoption
Speaker 3: as practiced today did emerge in the United States Go Team,
Speaker 3: but versions of this have existed across human culture at
Speaker 3: every age of human history. I mean, I was looking
Speaker 3: back at the Coda Hamarabi because I'm fun of parties,
Speaker 3: and the adoption is mentioned in the first written instance
Speaker 3: of law. But adoption was very different in evenings past.
Speaker 3: A lot of it was meant to not necessarily create
Speaker 3: a family, but more so to to do geo political
Speaker 3: or intertribal things like that. One of the big things
Speaker 3: was you had to have a male heir, right, you
Speaker 3: had to have a little guy to carry it on.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and there I think in the news right
Speaker 2: now there's information circulating about Japan's only male air has
Speaker 2: just become eighteen or something, and it's a huge deal.
Speaker 2: And if you can only imagine through all the centuries
Speaker 2: when marnarky has prevailed in most parts of the world,
Speaker 2: having the you know, the rules that you got to
Speaker 2: have a male that takes over everything. It was a
Speaker 2: huge deal for a royal family in particular to have
Speaker 2: someone in line. And it is weird to think how
Speaker 2: people just get kind of could be pushed up through
Speaker 2: that system if you did choose to adopt someone from
Speaker 2: another you know, close to royal family or something, you know,
Speaker 2: something like that, to arrange for another person to take
Speaker 2: over once the crown whoever dies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing, you know. I was astonished to
Speaker 3: find a while back that some of the emperors of
Speaker 3: ancient Rome were on purpose adopted by on purpose, I
Speaker 3: mean they were adopted not necessarily to be part of
Speaker 3: a family, but to continue some weird dynasty.
Speaker 2: Well because you could train them. Once you adopt that person,
Speaker 2: you can basically make them one of us us right, right, So.
Speaker 3: Who is free and who is a slave. In the
Speaker 3: Roman Empire, there fame as a cage. Let's remember that.
Speaker 3: Sadly though, the adoption of infants, like in the modern evenings,
Speaker 3: a lot of times when folks are searching to adopt
Speaker 3: a child, they're looking for the youngest human possible. Infant
Speaker 3: adoption was kind of rare historically in the ancient empires,
Speaker 3: you might see cases where what we'll call a foundling
Speaker 3: is taken in raised as a member of the family,
Speaker 3: primarily because most people are like working in farms or
Speaker 3: agriculture and they want that free labor. Shout out. Also
Speaker 3: to show Nolan and I do called ridiculous history, you
Speaker 3: can you can check out our brother Matt Frederick on
Speaker 3: that with one of my favorite sound cues. Noel, do
Speaker 3: you remember we did the story about the orphan train.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean, like the well meaning, well intentioned program
Speaker 4: in the United States too. On the way I'm going
Speaker 4: to say it is gonna sound well mean, but to
Speaker 4: round up children with seemingly having no parents and ship
Speaker 4: them off to work in farms, to be looked after
Speaker 4: by kindly farmer families, again well intentioned. There were abuses.
Speaker 4: There was a lack of infrastructure that led to some
Speaker 4: issues with kids falling through the cracks, but ultimately, at
Speaker 4: the end of the day, there it was at least
Speaker 4: a partial success story.
Speaker 3: Noble intent better angels of our nature. They also did
Speaker 3: auction children. There was auction.
Speaker 2: I want to point out another thing that's in popular culture.
Speaker 2: It's a story that has been passed down for a
Speaker 2: long time where there are two warring factions and some
Speaker 2: child is left, you know, in a village or something
Speaker 2: that has been raised by the enemy forces of that village,
Speaker 2: and there's a child there. One of the warlords or
Speaker 2: people end up adopting that child and they become like
Speaker 2: an apprentice and then moved up. And that's just a
Speaker 2: popular thing that occurs. That doesn't really I don't know
Speaker 2: if there is any historical significance to that or I
Speaker 2: that is, you know, a tale born of something that
Speaker 2: actually happened.
Speaker 5: But I just I know I see that a lot.
Speaker 4: And another example historically speaking is of course Moses from
Speaker 4: the Bible, from the Book of Exodus, who is found
Speaker 4: as a babe in the Russias or whatever, and adopted
Speaker 4: by a powerful family and then ultimately became a pretty important,
Speaker 4: powerful political figure.
Speaker 3: Let's just say I love it. We also know a
Speaker 3: great reference to Moses here, because we also know that
Speaker 3: Moses lucked out or was predestined to have an extraordinary
Speaker 3: interaction with the world. Because for ages past around this
Speaker 3: part of Earth, abandoned kids were often not foundlings. They
Speaker 3: were often enslaved, and they actually, in the Roman Empire days,
Speaker 3: they formed a significant part of the supply chain of
Speaker 3: the Roman Empire's slave industry.
Speaker 2: Yes, slaves or soldiers, right, I mean, you're automatically conscripted
Speaker 2: now again, because of wartime interactions between families that would
Speaker 2: get slaughtered and then some children that would be left.
Speaker 3: Every horrible thing that you can possibly imagine happening to
Speaker 3: someone in this situation did at some point occur. This
Speaker 3: is very unclean stuff. But let's look at other empires
Speaker 3: civilizations in India and China, they also had ancient adoption practices. Again,
Speaker 3: they would seem very different to modern adoption practices because
Speaker 3: in a lot of cases in those various civilizations, the
Speaker 3: idea was to it was like insurance. The idea was
Speaker 3: to guarantee that when you died, correct funeral rites would
Speaker 3: be enacted. Someone would continue. Also spoiler alert, a male
Speaker 3: heir specifically would be around to do the proper ancestor worship.
Speaker 3: Fall of Rome leads to a decline in adoption in
Speaker 3: Europe because, shout out to George R. R. Martin, the
Speaker 3: dominant cultures that rose from the flotsam and jetsam of
Speaker 3: the shipwrecked Roman Empire, those cultures in Europe, they put
Speaker 3: so much importance on bloodlines, just like the ancient Egyptians.
Speaker 3: Their thing was more incest is okay, you know, let's
Speaker 3: keep it in the family.
Speaker 4: Oh when you put it like that, ben gives out
Speaker 4: a whole nother meaning, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is I'm saying, in contrast to ancient Rome,
Speaker 3: and contrast to ancient civilizations in India or China, they
Speaker 3: weren't they weren't adopting, they weren't hiring from outside the
Speaker 3: network and.
Speaker 4: By design, though, right, I mean, like to your point,
Speaker 4: I mean, I was just saying, keeping it in the family
Speaker 4: when you start talking about incests just makes it kind
Speaker 4: of take on a little extra ick. But certainly the
Speaker 4: insular nature of these civilizations and these types of governments
Speaker 4: and powerful families. I mean that's well established.
Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed. Now fast forward. There's a ton of other
Speaker 3: stuff that happens. We're here in twenty twenty four. We
Speaker 3: are coming to you from the United States. In the US,
Speaker 3: the adoption process vary state by state. The laws in
Speaker 3: Massachusetts may not be the same as the laws in Mississippi.
Speaker 3: If you are adopting children from another country, you have
Speaker 3: to abide by the laws and regulations of your child's
Speaker 3: birth country, which I think makes sense.
Speaker 5: I don't know, it's sure it does.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: You have to abide by both laws, both sets of laws, right.
Speaker 2: Adopting from another country is a whole other thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Domestic adoption is the process of assuming the filial rights
Speaker 3: and responsibilities for a kid who is in the same
Speaker 3: country as you. Foster adoption is I think we're accurate
Speaker 3: the way we put it. Foster adoption is not necessarily permanent.
Speaker 3: It can evolve into a permanent adoption. International adoption is
Speaker 3: when you assume those filial rights and responsibilities for a
Speaker 3: kid from a different country, and typically those kids are
Speaker 3: going to be in an orphanage. They may be in
Speaker 3: foster care, they may have no real family support network.
Speaker 3: It's not a mandatory part of the process for adoption,
Speaker 3: but most people, the vast majority of families adopting a child,
Speaker 3: will work with things we call adoption agencies.
Speaker 4: Sure, and we have some friends and colleagues that have
Speaker 4: gone through that process as well that we've witnessed. And
Speaker 4: it is a lot of red tape, let's just say, yeah.
Speaker 2: And many states have their own kind of systems for
Speaker 2: that and agencies for that.
Speaker 3: Yes, And even now in the United States, some of
Speaker 3: those let's call them brokers, brokering partners, facilitators, are heavily religious.
Speaker 3: They're based in religion. Everybody's got their own spiritual system.
Speaker 3: We just have to note that it is really important
Speaker 3: to understand that.
Speaker 4: Well, I think, whatever your views on religion might be,
Speaker 4: it's important to acknowledge that there are religious organizations that
Speaker 4: at their heart, you know, are out to do good
Speaker 4: and to help people.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, well said. And so we're saying there's a long,
Speaker 3: at times astonishing history of human beings providing care for
Speaker 3: children that might not otherwise get the one thing everyone deserves,
Speaker 3: a decent shot at a life well lived. When everything
Speaker 3: goes as it should. We bear witness to this fundamental
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, something better than beauty. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: what the right word is, but this fundamental, noble aspect
Speaker 3: of the human experiment. Our question tonight what happens when
Speaker 3: things go wrong?
Speaker 4: We'll find out after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy, all right, doesn't always go
Speaker 3: as planned?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh of course, I don't know why, guys. I
Speaker 2: woke up watching Jim Carrey videos. I had a bit
Speaker 2: of a dream about him and some of the some
Speaker 2: of the things that he has been talking about over
Speaker 2: the past decade when he's you know, going and giving
Speaker 2: a speech for an award show and award ceremony or
Speaker 2: going on a talk show.
Speaker 4: His kind of zen phase that he's sort of entered, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's gone now towards a more religious thing
Speaker 2: that I just don't know much about. But in that
Speaker 2: time period at least he makes this beautiful point about
Speaker 2: you know, who is the point of consciousness that believes
Speaker 2: he's Jim Carrey and was playing the part of Jim
Speaker 2: Carrey and all this stuff. And when you think about
Speaker 2: just any of any of us, our identities, the things
Speaker 2: we hold dear, the things we believe, the way we
Speaker 2: feel about anything. It all is shaped by the human
Speaker 2: beings that are around us, the thoughts that enter our brains,
Speaker 2: the words that are said to us, the actions that
Speaker 2: we observe. And when you take on these responsibilities through adoption,
Speaker 2: you are you are taking the responsibility of shaping another consciousness, right,
Speaker 2: I mean at the heart of it. And it's it's
Speaker 2: as we've said, and Ben, you're just talking about trying
Speaker 2: to find the right word for what is that? What
Speaker 2: is the how do you describe that process? Is it beautiful?
Speaker 2: Is it astonishing? Like? What is that thing? And I
Speaker 2: don't have the right word for it. Besides, it's it's
Speaker 2: a responsibility. That word responsibility.
Speaker 4: It's all encompassing, is what it is, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's everything.
Speaker 2: You're shaping a life, absolutely, and unless you feel that
Speaker 2: weight and you're prepared for that responsibility, as you said,
Speaker 2: then it can go very wrong, and it can go
Speaker 2: extremely wrong if there are about intentions somewhere along that path.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what we're saying here is there are ongoing, provable,
Speaker 3: egregious problems with aspects of the adoption industry, especially on
Speaker 3: a global level. A lot of these issues echo historical
Speaker 3: instances of corruption and crime and conspiracy. These unclean things
Speaker 3: often continue in the modern day. Let's talk about forced adoption, right,
Speaker 3: that's the immediate dark side, right, Like back in the
Speaker 3: evenings of the Roman Empire and Indian and Chinese civilizations
Speaker 3: and honestly the world over. These kids didn't have a
Speaker 3: right to consent, you know what I mean. The parents
Speaker 3: didn't have the right to say, hey, it's okay to
Speaker 3: adopt my kid. They were murdered in war, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. They were conquered by blood and treasure.
Speaker 3: And one of the most I would argue, one of
Speaker 3: the most immediately recognizable recent examples of this is in
Speaker 3: North America, in the United States, well the anglosphere overall,
Speaker 3: arguably in the United States and in Canada, Native American children, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. We talked recently, I think in Strange News about
Speaker 4: an update to the story of these Native American schools,
Speaker 4: or schools built in order to assimilate Native American children,
Speaker 4: and just how many children died under tragic circumstances within
Speaker 4: these institutions. For decades, the US government abducted thousands of
Speaker 4: Native children and forced them into those boarding schools, where
Speaker 4: the goal was to again assimilate them, strip them entirely
Speaker 4: of their culture, their language, their customs, and essentially erase
Speaker 4: their history entirely. This is a an organized attempt at
Speaker 4: cultural erasure. At the peak of this era, there were
Speaker 4: more than three hundred and fifty Native American boarding schools
Speaker 4: across the United States, and this also took place in
Speaker 4: a slightly different arrangement over in Canada.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: It's crazy to think about three hundred and fifty different schools.
Speaker 2: In my mind, at least when we were first learning
Speaker 2: about this, I imagined a dozen, maybe a few dozen
Speaker 2: schools that existed, like on the frontiers of wherever the
Speaker 2: United States territory was expanding or something. But no, no, no,
Speaker 2: this is three hundred and fifty different schools that were
Speaker 2: doing the same process.
Speaker 3: That we know about exactly terrifying.
Speaker 2: Well, and we've just learned how many of these schools
Speaker 2: had literally a makeshift graveyard, or using the word graveyard
Speaker 2: is probably overstating it at a site as mass graves
Speaker 2: of children that would just basically disappear not only from
Speaker 2: their family when they were taken into one of these schools,
Speaker 2: but now from all of history, because they died in
Speaker 2: whatever circumstance while they're at the school, and now they're.
Speaker 3: Just buried, right things, you know, not necessarily someone purposely
Speaker 3: murdering these children.
Speaker 5: But not necessarily disease.
Speaker 3: Or lack of sanitation, right this. These programs also were
Speaker 3: often we don't want to you know, step on any
Speaker 3: crosses here, but they were often church led. They were
Speaker 3: led by the Christian Church of some doctrine or denomination,
Speaker 3: and they occurred in step with a larger push to
Speaker 3: encroach upon tribal land through kinetic war, through insidious policies,
Speaker 3: and as ever, breaking promises and treaties.
Speaker 4: I mean, if anyone had a chance to see Killers
Speaker 4: of the Flower Moon, you see how that assimilation and
Speaker 4: was utterly taken advantage of in order to rob these
Speaker 4: individuals of their tribal land and their wealth, especially in
Speaker 4: areas where that land may have sat upon oil reserves
Speaker 4: or other precious mining materials. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a great there's a great Netflix show I've
Speaker 3: been watching recently, and I don't have a lot of
Speaker 3: time to watch these things, but it's called Dark Winds.
Speaker 3: Have you guys heard of this?
Speaker 4: I saw it advertised. I'd like to check it out.
Speaker 3: It's a banger. I've got to read the books it's
Speaker 3: based on. But there's your concept of oil exploration or
Speaker 3: resource extraction reminds me of this. It's just it's so
Speaker 3: good anyway, a totally different thing. Most people nowadays in
Speaker 3: the US know about these sins of the government. However,
Speaker 3: you might be. You might be surprised learn there were
Speaker 3: weaponized policies and initiatives created not to dance around this
Speaker 3: idea of assimilation of forst adoption, but to do it
Speaker 3: blatantly up front, on purpose. The Indian Adoption Project would
Speaker 3: steal children from native families and purposely place them with
Speaker 3: families they considered let's call it white enough, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The thing is they're not orphans, they're not. They have parents,
Speaker 3: and the parents were trying to get their kids back,
Speaker 3: and in many cases they simply could not because the
Speaker 3: system was rigged against them. It reminds me of not
Speaker 3: to get too political, it reminds me of what's happening
Speaker 3: in recent years with Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 2: I can only imagine it occurred a lot during the
Speaker 2: years of the Crusades, where maybe you know Catholic armies
Speaker 2: would roam through fine children and then assimilate them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a scary thing because also these folks,
Speaker 3: we have to understand, are making a greater good argument.
Speaker 3: They're saying, well, usually we guild the children. Now we're
Speaker 3: doing something different.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's it's like it's less on paper
Speaker 4: horrifying than genocide, but kind of has a similar outcome.
Speaker 3: Genocide with more steps.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like psychological genocide in a way. It's it's
Speaker 4: very bizarre and unclean, as you would say, Ben.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so say we all. We also know that in Australia,
Speaker 3: which has its own intensely disturbing history with the people
Speaker 3: who are already living in Australia for thousands of years,
Speaker 3: and as well as in the United Kingdom, similar practices
Speaker 3: of forced adoption occurred. Surprising to learn, perhaps that the
Speaker 3: practice of forced adoption continued up until the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3: In Britain, we're talking two hundred and fifty thousand mothers
Speaker 3: were forced to give up their children, not because they
Speaker 3: were criminals, not because they did anything bad, but because
Speaker 3: they were not married. They were single moms, and that
Speaker 3: meant they could not be moms.
Speaker 2: Yikes, I think, and it's shown in a couple of places.
Speaker 2: You can look it up right now, that the anti
Speaker 2: abortion movements within any country will often push rates of
Speaker 2: adoption much higher. And it is often based on this
Speaker 2: same kind of thing that was happening in Britain.
Speaker 5: Where some.
Speaker 2: What would you call it a more sure something was
Speaker 2: violated right in the consummation of this child. So adoption
Speaker 2: is the correct move, at least so say the prevailing
Speaker 2: religious ideals.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, most of these most of these families were
Speaker 3: broken up with birth mothers who were under twenty four
Speaker 3: and unmarried, and it does appear there was an active
Speaker 3: conspiracy to pressure these young people into conforming. Right the
Speaker 3: nail that stands out shall be hammered down, and that
Speaker 3: the monarchy was doing that. Similar practices occur again in
Speaker 3: cultures the world round. This is not a glasshouse situation,
Speaker 3: never is. It's a glass planet. Most of the countries
Speaker 3: are committing the same sins at some point around the
Speaker 3: same time. What sixties nineteen sixties Chile, largely poor young
Speaker 3: indigenous women are either forced to give up their biological
Speaker 3: children or their children are stolen from them. This is
Speaker 3: true right after childbirth. They told the mothers that the
Speaker 3: kids died, and they just took the kids and then,
Speaker 3: you know, just like in the US, they often sterilized
Speaker 3: the birth mothers while they had them on the operating table.
Speaker 3: There are so many other cases Argentina as well. We're
Speaker 3: not gonna we're not going to explore that tonight, but
Speaker 3: please do investigate the dirty war on your own, as
Speaker 3: it's called. We have to understand that there are adoption conspiracies.
Speaker 3: They are real and they are evil things that leads
Speaker 3: us to the next related branch here, not just forced adoption,
Speaker 3: but child abduction, human trafficking. We're going to pause for
Speaker 3: a word from our sponsors. Please please please consider this
Speaker 3: the disclaimer. We are going to talk about again unclean things.
Speaker 4: And we're back. Yeah, let's just rip the band aid off.
Speaker 4: Human trafficking. For many families in the West, international adoption
Speaker 4: of a child, you know, can feel like a moral act,
Speaker 4: you know, a moral imperative. As so often is noted,
Speaker 4: the world is absolutely full of children who are not wanted,
Speaker 4: are not loved, and do need help. Therefore, the question
Speaker 4: kind of naturally arises, why should we create child when
Speaker 4: we could save one that already exists, you know, perhaps
Speaker 4: orphaned by a neglect, war, you know, living in war zones,
Speaker 4: constantly at risk disease, any number of scenarios. What can
Speaker 4: we do, as individuals with means to make a positive difference,
Speaker 4: especially when it comes to helping a child in need,
Speaker 4: rescuing a child, perhaps from a brutal situation. Unfortunately, though,
Speaker 4: as often tends to be the case, where there are
Speaker 4: good intentions and folks with means, there are often other
Speaker 4: folks there to intercept that situation and twist it to
Speaker 4: their own despicable ends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just I again, I hate to say this
Speaker 3: because I know our job is to articulate things here,
Speaker 3: but I don't have the words in this language to
Speaker 3: describe situations where you see human children treated like stray dogs.
Speaker 3: And that does happen, and it is an abomination. In
Speaker 3: some cases, we may be talking about children who require
Speaker 3: medical care that is simply beyond the reach of their
Speaker 3: social structure, right or their biological family. And if you
Speaker 3: adopt these kids, then you may be able to give
Speaker 3: them the care and the treatment that they need. Again,
Speaker 3: a noble imperative. There is no argument that in hundreds
Speaker 3: of thousands, perhaps millions of cases. Adoptive families make an
Speaker 3: enormous and positive difference for the world. However, again, it's
Speaker 3: not always the case. You know, what if these children
Speaker 3: are adopted by bad faith actors, What if these kids
Speaker 3: already have parents, were those biological parents allowed to consent
Speaker 3: to this adoption?
Speaker 2: Well, as we said at the very top of the episode,
Speaker 2: if you are choosing to go through the process of
Speaker 2: international adoption, you're not only choosing to trust the agency
Speaker 2: you're going through from whatever country you're in. You're also
Speaker 2: choosing to trust the agency or the group or the
Speaker 2: individuals on the other end of this weird bargain that
Speaker 2: you're making, and you're trusting that they have good intentions
Speaker 2: and they have taken actions that are correct through whatever
Speaker 2: system they're operating under and through whatever laws that are
Speaker 2: applicable there, and as well as just the moral stuff
Speaker 2: like how is this child coming into this situation?
Speaker 3: Yeah? What will this child remember? What will they recollect?
Speaker 3: And the main thing we have to note here is
Speaker 3: that when these conspiracies occur, it's not it's almost never
Speaker 3: the adoptive family. They are good faith actors. They are
Speaker 3: you know, to your point, Noel, the idea of saying, hey,
Speaker 3: why would we make a kid when we can help
Speaker 3: one that already exists. We see time and time again
Speaker 3: that people run into run into the wrong end of
Speaker 3: the conspiracy. Here, there's a guy named David Smullen who
Speaker 3: is the director of the Center for Children Law and
Speaker 3: Ethics over at Sanford University. Back in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 3: the Smollen family adopted two children from India sisters, and
Speaker 3: later they learned that these children were stolen from their
Speaker 3: birth mother. I just I can't imagine the weight of
Speaker 3: this tragedy, Like we're saying, nobody, I mean, maybe somebody,
Speaker 3: maybe a billionaire or an emperor, adopts children on a whim,
Speaker 3: But most people are treating this very seriously. And can
Speaker 3: you imagine, you know, can you imagine what happens when
Speaker 3: you learn that you have non consensually become the quote
Speaker 3: unquote back guy.
Speaker 2: That's an intense story. There's an NPR article you can
Speaker 2: look up if you would like to to learn more
Speaker 2: about this from July two thousand and seven titled an
Speaker 2: Adoption Gone Wrong. That is just that's a harrowing tale.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 3: There's also something that comes up again and again the
Speaker 3: idea of providing a human child with a family rather
Speaker 3: than a life in an institution. You can read about,
Speaker 3: for instance, certain circumstances during the Cold War, which hasn't
Speaker 3: stopped there Like in countries that said AIDS doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: Then children who were born with HIV were just raised
Speaker 3: in institutions. They did not have the opportunity for the
Speaker 3: formative care that fundamentally sort of makes a person a person. Like,
Speaker 3: institutions are a bad place for a kid to grow up.
Speaker 3: You know, if anybody here who has an office job,
Speaker 3: imagine you were born in your office. You never got
Speaker 3: to leave your office. You didn't have any parental figures.
Speaker 3: You had like a boss, and you had you know,
Speaker 3: an HR or something like that, or a bunch of
Speaker 3: nuns or a bunch of really cartoonishly pissed off nuns, yeah, or.
Speaker 2: Very sweet nuns.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Right, you're right, you're right, you're right. I'm being
Speaker 3: a jerky you're right, man.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we've certainly talked about situations where the
Speaker 4: church can do great good, facilitate great acts of charity
Speaker 4: and kindness, and we've also certainly seen the flip side
Speaker 4: of that where religious institutions can do great damage and
Speaker 4: great harm, and it's great disservices to you know, innocence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And when we talk about the dangers being raised
Speaker 3: in an institution or a system versus a as our power,
Speaker 3: Lauren would say, an actual facts family. We're not just
Speaker 3: talking about psychological damage. We're not talking mental or cognitive
Speaker 3: challenges alone. We're also talking about clearly traceable physical hazards
Speaker 3: for these humans as they develop. You know, you can
Speaker 3: read fascinating and intensely disturbing studies of the long term
Speaker 3: post traumatic stress disorder, syndrome and related stuff that hits
Speaker 3: people who, for instance, grow up as in a persecuted
Speaker 3: minority demographic, or people who grow up in institutions. They're
Speaker 3: going to have higher rates of heart disease, They're going
Speaker 3: to have higher rates of diabetes. It's what we're saying
Speaker 3: is that if you have the privilege and the ability
Speaker 3: to adopt the kit to save an innocent person from
Speaker 3: such a troubling thing, why would you not do it.
Speaker 2: Let's jump really quickly, Ben, you found something about this
Speaker 2: in particular that they're around or they're an estimated eight
Speaker 2: million children growing up in some in some way like
Speaker 2: this that you're describing, and that is an estimate from UNSEF,
Speaker 2: originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund.
Speaker 5: But this is.
Speaker 2: It's mind boggling to imagine eight million children growing up
Speaker 2: in something like at least what's described in the article
Speaker 2: you found Ben, that Romanian boarding school of some sort,
Speaker 2: where it's just children who have learned to not cry
Speaker 2: because their cries are never attended to, so they're just silent,
Speaker 2: and then the children grow up that way. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: pretty horrifying.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it seems that kids being adopted, as you said, Matt,
Speaker 3: through these international brokers, maybe maybe products commodities they may
Speaker 3: be sold. There is a vast there are multiple networks
Speaker 3: of conspirators that spend a great deal of time attempting
Speaker 3: to appear legit, attempting to appear like, hey, we're an
Speaker 3: Ngo or gong Go and we're helping because we, like you,
Speaker 3: want these kids to have a better life. Also, let's
Speaker 3: talk economics.
Speaker 2: This is horrible, and I know I don't mean to
Speaker 2: downplay the severity of this situation we're describing, but there's
Speaker 2: so many parallels to the puppy mills industry that it exists,
Speaker 2: and just then applying that to humanity, it's.
Speaker 5: Just a whole other.
Speaker 4: Level of evil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the creatures doing these things do not differentiate between
Speaker 3: a human being and a dog.
Speaker 4: That's why it's such a good parallel, Matt, And you're
Speaker 4: absolutely right as far as they're concerned, it's just a
Speaker 4: business model that's more even probably even more lucrative.
Speaker 3: Let's go back briefly to Chile. The provable conspiracy in
Speaker 3: Chile involved multiple actors. Now that's the most difficult bar
Speaker 3: for proving a genuine conspiracy. Multiple like a multi polar
Speaker 3: network of people capable of not just keeping a secret,
Speaker 3: but also successfully accomplishing a task. That's it's a very
Speaker 3: difficult thing. It doesn't happen all the time. But in
Speaker 3: Chile we're talking foster homes, hospitals, hotels, social workers, lawyers, judges,
Speaker 3: diplomats all participating. And you can learn more about this
Speaker 3: by checking out the NGOs, the institutions that are now
Speaker 3: dedicated to helping these abducted children learn more about their past.
Speaker 3: The vice president of Connecting Routes, one of these organizations,
Speaker 3: while Luis Insulza, he noted that people in groups who
Speaker 3: parte anticipated in this criminal enterprise, this trafficking of children
Speaker 3: in Chile, they were under the protection of the Chilean state.
Speaker 4: I mean, how much more twisted can you get? Whereas
Speaker 4: the body that is meant to protect children, that is
Speaker 4: meant to protect citizens is actually colluding, you know, with
Speaker 4: bad actors against them. And we're certainly not naive. We
Speaker 4: know this kind of stuff happens, you know, where there's
Speaker 4: two faced individuals that are part of these governments that
Speaker 4: are acting as though they're, you know, there for the
Speaker 4: greater good, but in fact they're there for something entirely
Speaker 4: different and much more insidious and self serving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a title for this, at least in the
Speaker 2: United States law books, titled adoption deception as like a
Speaker 2: specific type of conspiracy and crime that can be committed.
Speaker 2: I was just looking at it specifically in Louisiana, guys,
Speaker 2: because I was remembering some of these tales of adoption
Speaker 2: agencies slash religious groups or at least front facing religious
Speaker 2: groups that were that were taking children and abusing them.
Speaker 2: And then there's there are multiple instances of popular culture
Speaker 2: in television and film that you know, use these stories
Speaker 2: as the basis of a fictional story.
Speaker 5: That they're telling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we see it in fiction because the truth exists, right,
Speaker 3: because the nonfiction informs the explorations. And this is I
Speaker 3: would say the folks creating that fiction are doing a
Speaker 3: great service because they are informing the public, right, making
Speaker 3: you think twice. When you get a letter from an
Speaker 3: organization you've never heard of with an innocuous name, right
Speaker 3: and somehow relates to religion, wants a little money from
Speaker 3: you might help you adopt a child. There's a magnitude
Speaker 3: of crime here and people who in the case of Chile,
Speaker 3: around the world, individuals and sometimes other adoption agencies were misled,
Speaker 3: like you said, they were victims of adoption deception or
Speaker 3: deceived about the the origin of these kids. And let's
Speaker 3: focus on the kids. These kids are humans. They grow up,
Speaker 3: they have adventures, they live, they fall in love, you know,
Speaker 3: and they have their ship and story and so on.
Speaker 3: And then imagine you are what's a good age, what's
Speaker 3: like a good human age?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Goodness?
Speaker 3: Like adult human?
Speaker 4: Oh I don't know, just say quintessential twenty one?
Speaker 3: All right, Let's say you're twenty one years old, and
Speaker 3: then you learn that not only like maybe you already
Speaker 3: knew you were a child of adoption, but then you
Speaker 3: learn that you're biolog logical parents have been trying to
Speaker 3: reach you for twenty years and they've been searching for you,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. That's scary, dude.
Speaker 4: Well, it's also like so complicated because it's not the
Speaker 4: fault of your adoptive parents, not at all. So then
Speaker 4: you're put in the middle where it's like this really
Speaker 4: complex range of emotions where you almost like resent your
Speaker 4: adoptive parents even though they don't deserve that. And it's
Speaker 4: like you even if you know that, it doesn't mean that.
Speaker 4: Like I always say, like intellect and feelings are two
Speaker 4: very different things, and it would just be such a
Speaker 4: mind f you know. You know, yeah, And I couldn't
Speaker 4: imagine being put in that situation. I don't know what
Speaker 4: I would do or how it would feel. It's just
Speaker 4: too fraud you know.
Speaker 3: Some boffins over at the United Nations back in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two argued that the entire practice of international adoption
Speaker 3: should be discontinued. I'm not sure if I agree with that,
Speaker 3: because again, it's a matter of saving lives. But they
Speaker 3: said that elite what they call illegal intercuntry adoptions quote
Speaker 3: may constitute serious crimes such as genocide or crimes against humanity.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I think this is It's the same problem
Speaker 2: the Boy Scouts of America faced when they were first founded.
Speaker 2: Remember when we talked about that. The big problem they
Speaker 2: had is that, just by the nature of the organization
Speaker 2: dealing with children, you would get bad actors. Because it
Speaker 2: was a voluntary system when you could join in to
Speaker 2: be a Scout master, a Scout leader, or local person
Speaker 2: in the organization. Just by the nature of the thing,
Speaker 2: there would be some people that got into it for
Speaker 2: the wrong reasons, or for terrifying reasons, or terrible reasons.
Speaker 2: The same thing with some of these agencies and systems
Speaker 2: that are being set up. You're going to have some
Speaker 2: people who are going to be bad actors. How the
Speaker 2: heck do you defend you know, especially if you're talking
Speaker 2: about a massive organization, how do you defend it against
Speaker 2: something like that?
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't have the answer.
Speaker 3: I don't know if anyone does. You know, that's the thing.
Speaker 3: These conspiracies are real. Do not forget that. We also
Speaker 3: keep in front of mind the parents. To your point, Noel,
Speaker 3: they're not in on some kind of grift. These are
Speaker 3: not kissingers, they're not war criminals, they're not monsters. They
Speaker 3: are by and large super good parents. They are They
Speaker 3: just are they are.
Speaker 2: But we cannot dismiss some of the other parts of
Speaker 2: adoption and foster care that we've seen where there are
Speaker 2: abusive relationships on the parents side, and again that is
Speaker 2: we have to be able to look at individual cases, right,
Speaker 2: and there are many individual cases where the children are
Speaker 2: specifically adopted and moved into a system with the abusive
Speaker 2: parents that are on some kind of mission of their
Speaker 2: own of whatever they're doing.
Speaker 3: Right, with very little oversight, even in what we would
Speaker 3: call quote unquote developed countries. And that's part of why
Speaker 3: we're saving the foster care episode, which candidly is going
Speaker 3: to be going to be difficult. Let's end on this
Speaker 3: this positive note. There are good parents, right, and every
Speaker 3: kid deserves a chance. And if you suspect you are
Speaker 3: a loved one, maybe in a situation involving abduction or
Speaker 3: trafficking or bad faith actors in the realm of international adoption,
Speaker 3: don't hesitate to reach out. Weirdly enough, there are for
Speaker 3: most countries that you can imagine there is some sort
Speaker 3: of NGO that will attempt to help you. If you
Speaker 3: believe an adoption agency in the US or abroad may
Speaker 3: be involved in criminal activity, report the agency to law enforcement.
Speaker 3: Do not hesitate to do so, because the worst that
Speaker 3: will happen is if that agency is legit, they'll have
Speaker 3: to provide some paperwork, They'll have to do a couple
Speaker 3: extra emails.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I think that's a very easy cost benefit calculus. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: And if you are one of the millions of families
Speaker 3: who has adopted a child, if you were one of
Speaker 3: the millions of people who grew up in an adoptive family,
Speaker 3: please remember you've already made the world a better place.
Speaker 3: Thank you for tuning in. This is only the beginning,
Speaker 3: as we were saying, of a larger conversation, we would
Speaker 3: love to hear from you. Stay tuned for our future
Speaker 3: episode on the foster care system, Be safe and reach
Speaker 3: out to us online. That's a weird segue for such
Speaker 3: a heavy episode.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, we'd love to hear positive stories.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that would be something really nice
Speaker 2: to share on one of our listener mail episodes.
Speaker 5: So if you've got a positive.
Speaker 2: Story, email us, call us, hit us up on social
Speaker 2: media and we'll tell you how to do that.
Speaker 4: That's right. You can find us all over the internet
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