The news media has jumped all over the 2006 visa numbers from the US State Department. These visas numbers reflect the number of children adopted internationally by Americans.

I think the stories are puff pieces... over blown... generalizations... too simple.

After tripling in the past 15 years, the number of foreign children adopted by Americans dropped sharply in 2006, the result of factors that have jolted adoption advocates and prompted many would-be adoptive parents to reconsider their options.

From: Tightened rules lower adoptions of foreign babies

Give me a break... The 2006 via numbers are about the same as 2002 numbers. If I am generious and round up, 2006 adoptions were 11% lower then 2005 adoptions.

• 2006 - 20,679



• 2005 - 22,728



• 2004 - 22,884



SPONSOR




• 2003 - 21,616



• 2002 - 20,099

And I am assuming the "jolted adoption advocates" are from the Joint Council on International Children's Services and National Council for Adoption. Anyone who was paying attention wouldn't have been jolted. There were a lot of changes happening in different countries.

And somehow this lower number of visas is because adoptive familes reconsidered their options? It is more complex then that.

It is more direct and personal. Families decide to adopt from a specific country for a myriad of reasons. There is no one size fits all answer. When there are delays or other issues with their adoption, they reassess their options.

Haiti is a good example. The number of adoptions in 2006 grew. But some families are leaving the program because Haiti started enforcing the minimum age for parents. They have to be 35 years of age. And earlier in 2006, Haiti was allowing more exceptions on the parent's age.

And now there are exceptions again to the 35 year old rule. See Wendy's blog for more information.

Does this show up in the news media? No. Haiti is on the "growth" list.

Russian adoption slowed down due to adoption agency accreditation issues. China adoption slowed down because the government is pushing papers manually. And there is a limit on the number of adoptions they can process. Ukraine I already mentioned slowed down because of a government reorg.

Rant continued here.