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Nation Conversations: Betsy Reed and Kathryn Joyce on the Evangelical Adoption Movement

Are Christians in the United States fueling an under-regulated international adoption industry?

The Nation

April 21, 2011

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In this Nation Conversation with executive editor Betsy Reed, Kathryn Joyce explains how the evangelical adoption movement is now even pushing to get rid of the bureaucracy and vital safeguards of international adoption—and how they have friends in high political places.

More than a year ago, Christian evangelical adoption crusaders feared that the case of Laura Silsby, an American missionary arrested while trying to transport Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic, would give their movement a “black eye.” The charges of child snatching against American evangelicals didn’t match up with their pious baby-saving rhetoric.

But as Kathryn Joyce reports in this week’s issue of The Nation, the movement is now stronger than ever, with adoption conferences being held across the US and adoption advocates becoming more involved with international affairs. In this Nation Conversation with executive editor Betsy Reed, Joyce explains how the evangelical adoption movement is now even pushing to get rid of the bureaucracy and vital safeguards of international adoption—and how they have friends in high political places.

For more on this burgeoning movement, read Kathryn Joyce’s “The Evangelical Adoption Crusade” in the current issue of The Nation.

 —Kevin Gosztola

The NationTwitterFounded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political and cultural life, from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in American journalism.


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