American citizens should be banned from adopting children internationally because currently there is great need for adoption domestically.

Mr e-Speaker, ladies, gentlemen and malignant viruses, it is a pleasure to sit on my backside today and bring the forth the crushing logic of the opposition case. We do not contradict or quibble with the harm Proposition has identified – that children in care are likely to be fundamentally disadvantaged in their life prospects by institutional care, indeed we hold it up and exalt it as a pillar of our case. We say that harms in foster/institutional care are great in America the richest nation, but that the deprivation and squalor is even greater in Columbia. Our opposition will be brought to you in the traditional fashion – we have numerous charges we wish to bring to proposition’s case and our individual points of rebuttal shall be skilfully woven throughout. Firstly, we shall question the two problems brought by Proposition, namely those of human trafficking and the quality of foster care and show that any link between them and their proposed solution is an accident at best. Secondly, we shall examine their analysis that the state has a ‘”constitutional responsibility to protect the basic rights of our citizens with a higher priority “ and show that in its simplicity they have misunderstood the duty of the state and how it carries it out. Finally, we will look at why a large number of international adoptions actually occur. Before this though, just some quick rebuttal of the mechanism. We say that proposition’s attempt to ban international adoption only by Americans is simply not an enforceable policy. There are numerous situations where this can be circumvented. The problem instead is with the country which allows them to adopt (their example being Romania) not the country from which the adoptive parents come from. In reality, what’s to stop those American parents from migrating to Malawi, adopting a child and moving back with their legal dependant? The way you stop child adoption is to get the Malawi government to ban international adoption of their nationals, not the American government banning international adoption by their national, but we'll roll with the debate set up anyway. So firstly, we see that proposition have attempted to draw a somewhat tenuous line between international adoption and trafficking. We think every single problem they have mentioned could be solved by the US federal adoption agencies doing checks on foreign as well as domestic adoptions. We would point opposition to the UK guidelines; “The government encourages intercountry adoption in circumstances where: the child cannot be cared for in any suitable manner in their own country the adoption would be in the best interests of the child and with respect to the child's fundamental rights as recognised in international law the adopter has been assessed as eligible and suitable to adopt from overseas by an adoption agency “ (taken from http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Adoptionfosteringandchildrenincare/AdoptionAndFostering/DG_4018296) As always we believe the USA would be best served by following British social policy and we feel if these guidelines are followed, problems such as corruption and abuse would be solved. We think the Model Approach to Partnership in Parenting (MAPP) classes in Kansas sound excellent, make people adopting abroad do them as well! The second, and only other problem that first proposition brought to us was that foster care in America sucks. We think they may be right, we’re certainly not going to waste time disputing it. However their solution is simply to try and get as many people out of it as possible. We think it may be better to try and repair the ship first before shouting ‘To the lifeboats!’. This is because, unfortunately, there are large numbers of children out there who are ‘unadoptable’, so to speak. This can be due to physiological problems from their upbringing, past drug addictions, or criminal records. We think that these children will unfortunetly remain in care till adulthood, regardless of proposition’s mechanism. Instead we would promote things like the ‘CORE’ program in New York, from which 79% of the programs graduates go onto college. These programs help combine a social and educational network for foster home children with residential camps and various other tools. This proves that the state itself can provide a nourishing family environment, rather than relying on existing parents. ‘http://www.residentialeducation.org/’ We think maybe the state should provide more funding. Better training should be given to staff in foster homes. More equal access schemes can be created. Proposition have as yet failed to give us a reason why foster care will always lead to such disastrous outcomes such as prison. We believe in hope, we believe in change, we believe in Barrack Obama to reform the system!