When thinking about adoption, families begin to ask themselves many questions. Determining options including gender and age can have a big impact on your adoption decision. A major component of choosing adoption is whether you are adopting domestically or internationally. When families look into international adoption, multiple risks begin to come to mind. Will I ruin the child by taking him away from his home country? Is it too expensive to adopt internationally? Is my orphaned child HIV positive? If yes, is adopting this child really safe for my family? Even if it is said that we should help those in need, why should we put ourselves in danger by bringing them into our home? Since HIV is a life-threatening disease, these questions are easy to answer. If you don't want to risk HIV being in your home, simply don't adopt HIV-positive children. While the media and adoption organizations try to persuade their audiences that it is safe to adopt these children, there is a risk in everything and this could be a life-threatening risk for you and your family. It's not safe for them, the expenses are immense, and America is already infested with HIV, so why should we add more? Understanding HIV and how it can be transmitted is critical when deciding whether it is safe to adopt these children. The most common modes of HIV transmission are through sexual contact, pregnancy, injection drug use, occupational exposure, and blood transfusion (U.S. Department of Health). HIV lives in the blood and other body fluids such as semen, breast milk, and vaginal fluids. Although unlikely, if vomit or nasal fluid contained enough blood, it could infect a person if they came into direct contact with it (U.S. Department of Health). When… half of paper… you don't want to help these children in other ways, you can donate to HIV relief organizations working in developing countries. Clearly, it's not safe for our homes, there are too many expenses for treatment, and America is already an HIV growing country that needs to stop. Unless you want to bring HIV into your home, do not adopt foreign children with HIV. Works Cited Hicken, Melanie. “Average Cost of Raising a Child: $241,080.” CNNMoney. Cable News Network, August 14, 2013. Web. April 5, 2014."HIV Effectiveness." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 April 2013. Web. 06 April 2014. "Office of Population Affairs (OPA)." HIV. Np, 05 Sep 2010. Web. 07 Apr 2014. “U.S. Statistics.” AIDS.gov. US Statistics, June 6, 2012. Web. April 2, 2014. “US Statistics.” US statistics. 06 June 2012. Web. 06 April. 2014.