Associated Press S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s the Meaning of Orphan to New Lengths

"Some Haitian children orphaned twice: Haitian government has frozen most international adoptions"

focuses with great sympathy on a volunteer who became attached to a child in a Haitian hospital and decided she wantd to take him home to Canada.

While the facts of the Haitian adoption ban are reported as well as the reasons for it, they seem be quite mean interspersed as they are within a human interest story focusing on a 37-year-old woman whose mother flies to Haiti to meet her "grandson" before the woman ever applied to adopt any child or discovered whether the child she decided she wanted was an orphan or had family.

When has AP become so editorialized in "reporting" the news?  How can a child be labelled an  "orphan" before knowing anything about his parents or extended family, let alone consider him "twice orphaned" when no adoption was ever begun!

Even a volunteer working in a pound could not simply decide to keep a cute kitten or puppy without first being sure it did not have a an owner looking for him!

The Chicago Press carried the story without crediting AP. At that site you can comment.  Or you'll likely  find it in other newspapers.

UPDATE 6/21/10: Did I mention that puppy adoptions are more carefully screened? Here's the proof:
 

BILLINGS - A state judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by two women who said they were snubbed by a rescue group when they sought to adopt dogs seized in an animal cruelty case.
District Judge Gregory Todd granted a motion for summary judgment Thursday in thelawsuit filed by Penny Ronning and Kelly Dennehy against Yellowstone County and National English Shepherd Rescue.

Ronning and Dennehy had volunteered to help care for 200 English shepherd dogs that were seized from Linda Kapsa of Ballantine in late 2008.

The lawsuit argued that when Kapsa entered a no-contest plea, it was with the understanding that volunteers would be given preference when the dogs were adopted out.

The NESR denied Ronning's application to adopt four dogs. The group said one was overly dominant and another overly submissive and that Ronning had no experience handling dogs with those behavioral problems.

Imagine that! You need special experience to adopt a special needs dogs - but any fool, like Torry Hanson - can get a special needs kid!

The group offered Ronning another dog, but she turned it down.

After the overly dominant dog was adopted, Dennehy applied to adopt that dog and was denied. Todd's order said that if Dennehy had applied before the dog was adopted, the NESR would have given her preferential consideration, but most likely would not have allowed her to take it because of her lack of experience with overly dominant dogs.

Dennehy also turned down the offer of another dog.

Ronning, Dennehy and several other volunteers still have a lawsuit pending against the county, the NESR and several county employees and other volunteers accusing them of intimidation, slander, libel, infliction of emotional distress, deceit and negligent hiring and training of employees.