Are 'Orphans' Up for Adoption Really True Orphans?

Question

wow, some real charmers here pfft! it just made me wonder because Angelina Jolie claimed her child was an 'orphan' but that child has a living mother and extended family

I'm wondering how many children we are told are 'orphans' really aren't?

Answer 1

yes

Answer 2

your mom your dad the 1s you never had your an orphan

its a song lol

yeah they are cause they dont have parents duhhhhhh

Answer 3

Madonna's adoptlings were in an orphanage and weren't true orphans.  Even Angelina's latest addition turned out to not be a true orphan.

Lots of Chinese girls are abandoned and sent to orphanages even though their n-parents are still living.

Many, many poor families in poor countries will put their children in an orphanage so that they can be cared for (the case of Madonna's adopted child) because for whatever reason, the family cannot care for them themselves.  Perhaps if *some* people did a little more research into what goes on outside of their comfy little existence, they might realize that things aren't always so black and white.

Answer 4

An orphan is someone who has lost their parents -- usually through death but also through abandoment or desertion so yes, most orphans up for adoption are really tru orphans.

Answer 5

ummm...yes...or they wouldnt be in an orphanage?? what kind of adoption agency gives a child up for adoption if he's not orphaned.

orphaned: lost his parents and has no family/relatives, or his parents gave him/her away.

Answer 6

I think orphans as children who have no extended family members alive and no parents alive.  Yeah it's true Madona's African baby had parents and a family. She basically paid the family millions of cash to take their child from her.  It's pretty sad and that is a country that doesn't even allow adoption!  It's sad what the world has come to.

Answer 7

What do you mean?  DEFINE 'True Orphans'...

Answer 8

Sometimes, but not as often as people would like to think.  The babies "Zoe's Ark" tried to take out of Africa were all "orphans," and yet they weren't--kinda like Madonna's kid, who was an orphan until his parents spoke up.  An orphan is, by definition, a child whose parents are dead.  Look it up!

Answer 9

Either parental rights have been terminated, parents deceased, no family members willing to step up to the plate.

Answer 10

"a.A child whose parents are dead.

b.A child who has been deprived of parental care and has not been adopted"



I guess it depends on your definition of ophan. These are from the dictionary. My own defintion would be the first, I guess. Yours (NO living relative) is pretty broad probably. How far would that go? Second cousins? Third? Great great aunts?  At any rate, most adoptees (at least in this country at this time) would not be orphans. As someone noted, even many of the adoptees from other countries are often abandoned rather than orphaned.