Your Say: System stifles adoptions?

Russia recently banned adoptions by Americans. At the same time, fewer children are available for adoption in the USA. Comments from Facebook:

January 14, 2013 / USA Today

Russia recently banned adoptions by Americans. At the same time, fewer children are available for adoption in the USA. Comments from Facebook:

We adopted our son from Russia five years ago, and he is perfect. It was easier to adopt from Russia. Our child is happy, healthy and in a very loving home.

We are going through the foster care system to adopt again. It's heartbreaking what hoops we are made to jump through in the states, but we are continuing with the process.

No system is perfect. It is all hard when you want to be a parent and cannot give birth to your own child.

Dawn Shumaker Hughes

Tell the U.S. to make it easier to adopt and harder for birth parents to change their minds, then more people would adopt in the U.S.

My girlfriend was adopting locally. She had to give the baby back after three days because the birth mother changed her mind. A coworker gave a child up for adoption, then decided 10 years later that she was mature enough to have her daughter in her life. She tracked down the child.

Neither of these situations is right, but if you adopt in the U.S., there is a good chance they might happen. Overseas, not so much. Also, the processes are much less invasive with foreign children.

Alisha Lehew

Should adoption be easy? If it is too easy, involving a lot of money, then it becomes like trafficking. Russia needed to get a bit tougher in this process. The almighty dollar always speaks volumes. People figure if someone has enough dough, it means he or she must be great and will provide a loving home. Well, money isn't everything.

Molly Jones

Many people who adopt internationally adopt children with special needs. Some do it because there are fewer risks of a failed adoption in general. In other cases, it is because it is less expensive.

If you really care about the kids in the U.S. who need homes, fight the system that makes it difficult at best to adopt children here.

There is so much red tape and risk here that many people who adopt internationally have tried to adopt domestically and failed. They do not want more heartbreak or loss of time and money. Don't judge what you don't know.

Marie Gonda

Letter to the editor:

USA TODAY's article "Adoption options plummet as Russia closes its doors" hit the nail right on the head.

I am the mother of a 7-year-old adopted from Russia. After having to rely on family after Superstorm Sandy blew through, my husband and I decided that it would be a good idea to look into giving our daughter a sibling.

Although we haven't looked at domestic adoption options, I have called adoption agencies to see whether any international programs would work for us. We have been deterred by long waits for a child, stays lasting over a month's time in the country from which we would adopt and children being presented with medical needs too expensive for us to handle.

I am in touch with other prospective adoptive families who have also complained that there are currently few adoption options.

According to Orphan Hope International, there are an estimated 145 million to 210 million orphans worldwide. The statistics on orphans are grim. Studies have shown that 10% of orphans in Russia who age out of care commit suicide. Many females become prostitutes, and many males become criminals.

Unfortunately, national political agendas prevent families from forming, and guarantee that millions of kids will end up alone and out on the streets to face a terrible fate once they age out of the system.

Amy Kravitz; Morganville, N.J.