Hague regulations slow international adoptions
BY NOEL E. OMAN
Posted on Monday, November 24, 2008
Donna Baslee of Bella Vista knows firsthand how difficult and complex
it is to adopt foreign-born children.
She has adopted two boys from Guatemala. Just as each child is
different, so was each adoption in Baslee's case.
The adoption of her son Gabriel was, in her words, "picture-perfect,
taking exactly six months from start to finish." Gabriel's adoption
was completed two weeks before Christmas a year ago.
Baslee began the process to adopt Gabriel after her efforts to adopt
another child, whom she named Logan, turned into a "nightmare." By the
time she had adopted Gabriel, her effort to adopt Logan had lasted
nearly a year and a half.
Baslee's experience came as the adoption of foreign-born children has
declined in the United States.
Nationally, international adoptions fell to 17, 438 in the fiscal year
that ended Sept. 30 from 19, 613 in fiscal year 2007, a drop of 11
percent, according to the Office of Children's Issues at the U. S.
State Department. It was the lowest number of adoptions in nearly a
decade and far below the peak of 22, 884 adoptions reached in 2004....
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