The need for adoption around the world is astonishing. It is currently estimated that there are 143 million orphans in the world (Wingert, vol.151). In 2007, there were 513,000 children living in foster care in the United States alone (Rousseau 21:14). International adoption in the United States was started after World War II as a way to help children left homeless after the war took their parents away. Although there are thousands of healthy children waiting for adoption in the United States, several American couples still turn to foreign adoption when looking for potential children. Americans often fail to understand the need for intervention within their own country and their duty to take care of internal affairs before venturing into other countries to attempt to rescue foreigners in distress. International adoption in the United States must be abolished, as it is harmful to prospective parents and their potential children. The injustices surrounding international adoption often have a harmful impact on the children involved. Hollingsworth examines the harmful implications associated with international adoption: The adoption of children from other countries by U.S. families presents the risk that these children will be deprived of the opportunity to learn about and have access to their birth families: a violation of these children's fundamental rights compared to more advantaged children in their country of origin or in the United States. (48:209) International adoption can lead to a loss of connection to the child's culture. This loss of culture confuses the child who is now forced to grow up in an American society so different from what he is used to. Children, who can be domesticated... middle of paper... seek only profit, instead of uniting children with caring families. For young children, “being removed from one's family of origin or being killed or ostracized forever is not a choice that should be forced upon the children of the world” (Hollingsworth 48:209). Just because the faces of America's neglected youth don't appear on television screens or billboards doesn't mean they don't exist. America's ignored youth need people to care for them as if they were born into their family. Hollingsworth expresses his awareness that "the right of children to be raised in a safe and healthy environment by their biological families and in their cultures of origin is primary and should be equally available to all children" (48:209), especially those in the United States, where the protection of young people is fundamental.