The New Zealand Herald reported yesterday that more and more New Zealanders are looking overseas to adopt children.

They report that as the number of domestic adoptions plummet and as the waiting list grows, New Zealanders look overseas.

“Inter-Country Adoption New Zealand (Icanz) says more than 900 have been adopted in the past 20 years.

The children are not just from perennially popular Eastern European countries such as Russia, but also Cambodia, Chile, India, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, the Philippines, Tonga, Moldova, Hong Kong and even Kazakhstan.

AUT University senior psychology lecturer Rhoda Scherman said there was “high interest” in adopting from overseas and parents just had to prepare themselves for the hurdles they must overcome to do it.

Icanz spokeswoman Wendy Hawke said some couples had to endure up to three years of bureaucracy and spend between $10,000 and $50,000 on overseas travel, hotel bills and paperwork, but she wanted to tell Kiwis it was possible to achieve their dream of becoming parents. According to Child Youth and Family, the number of domestic adoptions has fallen 40 per cent in five years.

Scherman said possible reasons included the increased availability of abortions and contraception and a rise in infertility.”

Scherman has a point here, as can be seen from this table here, the number of abortions has increased significantly in New Zealand over the past 30 years, while at the same time adoption numbers have consistently fallen.

A 2008 stuff.co.nz article has comment from Christchurch GP Dr Hilary Cleland who said, “I guess people are really in crisis and they look at their options and termination might seem like a quick solution. A lot of people are attracted to it because of that. They just want to get out of the situation that they are in.”

The issue here is deeper than just over whether or not our adoption laws are good enough. It is about transforming the process through which a women goes in deciding whether to abort or not. It is about giving her all the relevant information that she needs, so that she can make an informed decision, and it is about giving her the time to be able to look rationally at the options she has in front of her.

While there is no one easy solution to this whole issue, we must create processes which are good for women and good for their unborn children and also which are good for society. It is unfair that thousands of would-be parents around New Zealand can not adopt because we have laws which create a process which drive women to a decision which they may not desire had they had better information about adoption. It is unfair that adoption only becomes available to those who can afford to spend tens of thousands to go overseas to find a child.

Adoption is a choice that the parent/s of the child have to make, and we shouldn’t force women to adopt, but we shouldn’t keep women uninformed by pushing them through a process which leads to an abortion. This is also unfair.