While I have my doubys about most of them, someone like Angelina Jolie actually goes to some of this world’s Hell holes – not for photo ops but because she’s asked to do so by the UN (like her latest visit to Baghdad, where she actually gave a highly informed and good speech – though I don’t know who wrote the speech, of course…)

Also, while it’s true that the money spent on adopting a child could help more people if it were spent in other ways, this is not a very telling argument against adoption. It would be if all the other people who had that kind of money did spend it in that more rational fashion. Then you could say that the adoptive parents did something foolish while the rest of us spent our money more wisely. As it is, most people don’t spend any of their money on these kinds of projects, so it’s not really fair to tell the few who do by adopting a child that THEY should spend that money more rationally.
J.