[Timoteo]

(01-28-2013 02:49 PM)Bad Hussar Wrote:  

(01-28-2013 02:17 PM)Timoteo Wrote:  

My understanding is that foreign adoption became so popular because it was more difficult to adopt American kids here in this country. The red-tape and process was exhausting, while it was actually less so to go abroad. Also, certain kids are more desirable than others (you know...blond, blue-eyed...), so there wasn't enough "supply" to meet "demand." Of course, it was even easier for people of means. Especially celebs - they can get a kid on demand from pretty much anywhere.

Sometimes there are good reasons for things to be difficult. While you can't really stop people just having children you can regulate who gets to adopt a child.

To be honest a potential adoptive parent from a Western country should have to go through the same vetting process for a foreign adoption as they would for a local one.

I hear what you are saying about the "availability" of kids for adoption in developed countries. The most honest and "deserving" couples for adoption in my opinion are those where the woman is of reproductive age, wants children, but cannot have children herself. This kind of couple should go to the top of the list. If it is the man who is infertile there's always sperm banks, or other advanced procedures that can get viable sperm where, before, there was no hope.

What see in today's world is "single mothers by choice", single women who were once fertile but squandered their opportunity to have children and all manner of gay/lesbian/trans/cis/dis/lis and everything else who have the biological ability to be parents, but do not want to for there own personal lifestyle reasons. In my opinion this class should go to the bottom of the list for in-country adoptions, and are also very rarely suitable candidates for foreign adoptions. This may come as a shock to many, but most "Third world" populations, and government officials, are conservative by Western standards. Single women, or homosexuals adopting children will definitely not be OK.

Nothing in my post disagrees with this. I agree that it should be a stringent process by which you hand the life of a human being over to another. However, for those with means, foreign adoption had fewer hurdles for whatever reasons. I think the trend of American couples adopting Asian children took off for that reason. You raise an interesting point however - I'm curious as to who seeks the majority of adoptions now. Is it couples where one is infertile, and perhaps can't afford the expensive fertility treatments/procedures, or the treatments failed? Is it couples and/or single women that are past childbearing age, but still want to raise a child? Is it single women that don't want to have children naturally, but want a kid? What percentage of those seeking adoption are gay couples? I'm curious as to the breakdown on this. There's also the argument that a child is better with anyone that can provide them a loving home, as opposed to being state-raised.