I am a proponent of adoption over abortion and, as you likely already know, I facilitate adoption on a daily basis. I receive a lot of calls about foreign adoption and while I have encouraged some to go that route, I have always felt that China was not the answer. China's one child policy has spawned moral and ethical dilemmas and the deaths of many Chinese girls. It is reported that within ten years, there will be such a shortage of Chinese women for the men to marry that they are already being encouraged to find foreign brides. In China, there is no social security. What that means is that in their old age, parents must be supported by their children. Traditionally the breadwinners were the boys and they also carried the family name. So with the policy being one child only, the preference was to have a boy, or suffer in your old age.
The government was known to crack down on people who had more than one child, particularly the farmers, who needed multiple children to help them with their farms. If someone disobeyed the law, they lost their jobs or their family members lost their jobs. In some cases, they were harassed and even had their homes destroyed. It was powerful motivation not to have girls. Because it is illegal in China to abandon a baby anywhere, families would leave them in quiet dark places like along farm roads or in dark alleys. Some were found. Many died.
In recent times, with ultrasounds available, sex selection is the norm. Girl babies are aborted. Before ultrasounds were available, a female child would simply be delivered and placed face down in a bucket of water to drown. The word "humanitarian" doesn't come to mind when I think of China. They kill their own.
Recently, a child trafficker who was released from prison gave his account of what goes on. Apparently orphanages in China pay hefty sums for baby girls because the foreign demand is so high. It's a for-profit venture selling Chinese baby girls. Ironically, with adoption there is more demand for girls at the rate of perhaps 8 out of 10 families who prefer a specific gender choosing females. That is a topic for another day. I encourage you to read this article yourself and come to your own conclusions:
http://www.wgntv.com/news/la-fg-china-adopt24-2010jan24,0,6173934.story?page=2&track=rss
China needs to clean up their act. However, until foreign countries stop adopting from China, there will be no incentive to do so. In the meantime, baby girls die and baby girls are kidnapped and sold to an orphanage and subsequently a family. Yes, they end up with a good life, but is it fair or moral to encourage the practice of taking them from families who love them and don't want to give them up? China may need a one child policy, but if they want to put those kinds of restrictions on families, they need to make a plan for the aged that doesn't involve having only boys. I could accept the one child rule for population control if everyone were to have whatever child God sent them -- boy or girl. Sterilization is a much more acceptable practice than abortion.
Americans have had the reputation of going anywhere on humanitarian missions to help out. We don't restrict our gifts to just our own country. We, and other nations, must put pressure on China to change their practices or we need to shut down all adoptions from China. We shouldn't adopt kidnapped babies and we shouldn't support abandonment of unwanted infants. If we continue to support the policies that cause harm to children, particularly girls, then we are as guilty as they are. China has no one to blame when they have no one for their sons to marry.
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