For starters, they point to the fact that organ sales are illegal in America. But this rumor doesn t listen to reason. After centuries of exploitation, many poor Latin Americans have no trouble believing that foreign criminals are out to snatch their kids. Folklorist Campion-Vincent may have uncovered another reason. Writing in a 1990 issue of Western Folklore, a journal of the California Folklore Society, she notes that though body snatching is a myth, illegal adoptions by wealthy foreigners are a real albeit small, problem.
Adoption is still an alien concept in much of Latin America.
The humanitarian impulse of the First World is totally misunderstood in the many countries where these rumors arise, says Bill Pierce, chairman of the Washington-based National Council for Adoption. In that culture it can be really impossible to understand why a couple of middle-class white Americans would want to adopt such a child. The logical answer is that they must want to profit from the child in some way. It s sometimes easier to imagine the evil within the human heart than to perceive the real mercy.