Is International Adoption Coming to an End?

China adoption referrals have slowed to something that could only optimistically be called a crawl. The reasons are murky, but they probably range from fewer babies being abandoned in a robust economy to a desire to shed a humiliating reputation as a leading supplier of babies.

In Guatemala, international adoptions are scheduled to end January 1, as officials attempt to sort through a program rife with corruption but also known for many happy adoption stories. I can think of no world like the microcosm of adoption where such extremes of good and evil exist. On the one end, families are formed, giving children a chance at a better life and fulfilling lifelong dreams of parenthood. At the opposite extreme are allegations of trafficking, of children stolen or bought from their parents, of “professionals” preying on parents’ desperation, bilking them of their money and their dreams.

I am sad for my friends who fear their legal, ethical Guatemalan adoptions will be tainted by the whiff of scandal. I also feel for parents-to-be who fear the adoptions they started months ago won’t be completed.

Ouch … Sometimes there is so much pain in adoption, I wonder why anyone does it. Then I look at my daughter, adopted domestically last year after China downshifted, and I know why we move forward. The reward so outweighs the risk!

But why does international adoption have to be such a fragile thread? A major issue is the Hague Convention, a child-protection measure that supports international adoption only when attempts to locate relatives or a domestic adoptive family are unsuccessful.

Adoptive parents generally agree countries should first look locally to find families for their orphaned children. But what if the number of orphans exceeds the number of local adoptive parents?

The United States is in the midst of implementing Hague. Unsure of how this would impact international adoption, I called Susan Cox, spokeswoman for Holt International, a longstanding agency with programs in seventeen countries, though only eleven are open to new applicants.

Susan predicts Hague will make international adoption more stable for families, but it will not make the process faster. Already, most overseas adoptions take more than two years to complete.