The Associate Press has missed again (“Foreign Adoptions continue long decline,” April 14, The Columbian).
The story cites two reasons for the decline in foreign adoptions: illegal practices by U.S. adoption agencies, and lack of laws that prevent adoptive parents from transferring custody to another family. Neither makes sense as a reason for decline but serve as excuses for more regulation, while a major reason for decreased foreign adoptions is ignored.
There are hundreds of thousands of children in need of parents in Third World countries and conflicted areas. They cannot be adopted outside of their home country (where there’s little capacity for adoption) because of United Nations-promoted laws restricting adoptions. One example is an orphanage in Guatemala that has done great work in taking care of neglected and horribly abused children.
In the past, many of those children were adopted, including by parents from the U.S. Prospective adopting parents could volunteer in the orphanage, get to know the children and choose one or more for adoption. That can no longer happen because of laws that prevent an adopting parent from seeing the child before adoption. This is one example of the nonsensical laws promoted by the U.N. in this area. The intent of these laws is to keep children in their place of origin. It’s time to think of the best interest of the child.
