Researchers from the University of Liverpool last week labeled the findings of their psychological study “The Madonna Effect,” referencing the apparent increase in third-world parents “dumping” their children into orphanages with the hope that they might be adopted by celebrities.

Late April Madonna is scheduled to appear at court in the southeast African country of Malawi over publicized controversy relating to her adoption of David Banda, a two-year-old boy she met while visiting a Malawian orphanage a year and a half ago. Critics say that Madonna is using her fame to by-pass usual legal processes for non-resident adoption. Earlier this month the Malawi government recommended to the high court that they approve her adoption. David is currently living with Madonna and her husband in London.

Author of the Liverpool study and child psychologist, Professor Kevin Browne, asserts that there has been an increase in international adoption due to media attention surrounding Madonna’s fight for David. He and his associates believe this effect has harmful results. “Some argue that international adoption is a solution to a large number of children in institutional care but we have found the opposite is true.” They report that children are better off in foster care systems in their native countries and that this increased publicity is encouraging parents, even ones who might be able to keep their own children, to give them up in the hope of a “Western” future.

What some are calling the “adoption fever” is boiling. A sampling of international adopting celebs now includes Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Meg Ryan, Mary-Louise Parker, Julie Andrews, and Mia Farrow.

As debate surrounds the pros and cons of this “fever,” AIDS Orphans Day is approaching. The May 7^th campaign hopes to draw attention to the more than 15 million children, estimated to be 20-25 million by 2010, who have been orphaned by AIDS and face malnutrition and increased susceptibility to exploitation, forced labor, prostitution, and child soldiering. FXB International, the host of AIDS Orphans Day reports that fewer than 1 in 10 AIDS orphan receives any external support, many experiencing discrimination that bars them from healthcare and schooling in their native countries.

Juno MacGuff is sixteen. She lives in a small house in a modest neighborhood, drives a beat-up blue minivan, plays guitar in a band with her friends, uses a hamburger-shaped phone, drinks enormous blue slushies, chatters in (sometimes crude) slang, and “out of boredom” and bad judgment becomes pregnant by her best friend, Paulie Bleeker.

After a run-in with an abortion clinic, Juno decides on adoption and finds a married couple in the Pennysaver that wants a baby—and after her parents recover from the shock, they support her through the pregnancy. The adoptive parents (played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) seem ideal, but Bateman’s character is still dreaming of becoming a rock star, and he isn’t sure he’s ready for a baby at all.

In Juno (rated R for mature thematic material, sexual content and language), director Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking) does what he does best—takes a premise we’ve seen and flips its on its quirky head. Though it follows the now familiar accidental-pregnancy-as-a-growing-experience route (i.e., Knocked Up), Juno avoids getting mired in raunch, as screenwriter Diablo Cody apparently dares to believe that teenagers think about things other than sex. She dials up the slang just enough to make it the film’s aesthetic, and in a way, it’s like watching Shakespeare—once you get used to the vernacular, it’s brilliant.

As portrayed by the fantastic Ellen Page, Juno isn’t like many conventional high school movie heroines. Rather, she lives in jeans and plaid button-downs and freely acknowledges the stupidity of her actions. Paulie (Michael Cera, endearingly innocent and geeky) is smitten with her intelligence and wit as much as her smile.

Because of its themes and language, Juno is a film for mature audiences, but it presents an honest, funny, good-hearted story about maturing, learning to love, and growing through mistakes.

The Evan B. Donaldson Institute, a leading institute for adoption, released a report that that says states should provide all births records of adult adoptees. The report has prompted a debate over a mother’s right to privacy versus a child’s right to know her mother.

The report says allowing adoptees to see their birth certificates “is a matter of legal equality, ethical practice and, on a human level, basic fairness.” Cultivating openness will help remove “stigma, shame, and inequitable treatment” from the adoption experience. Eight states allow open access to birth records, and Evan B. Donaldson says both children and birthparents welcome the contact: “There are minimal, if any, negative repercussions.”

Thomas Atwood, president of the National Council for Adoption, disagrees: “We don’t’ oppose open-ended adoption. We do oppose the law empowering one side to force itself on the other (without mutual consent).”

Atwood said proponents of “mandatory openness” argue that birth children need the information for medical purposes, but Atwood points out that he knows of no state that witholds this information, and it can be obtained without identifying the parent.

Evan B. Donaldson says that adoptees cannot find their whole identity without knowing their birth parents. Speaking from his experience at NCA and also from his experience as an adoptive father, Atwood said, “Most adoptees say they don’t have identity problems to a greater extent than anybody else on the street.”

Kris Faase, director of adoptions at Bethany Christian Services, the largest national adoption agency, agrees that some women need to maintain confidentiality, often because of past social stigmas. She said most of the adoptions Bethany facilitates are open, but when a mother does want confidentiality, they aim to balance that with the child’s desire to know about their past: “We certainly want to give her that protection, but that doesn’t mean we don’t give the child all the information we can gather.”