Now that my husband and I hope to bring more children into our family through adoption, we've entered into a complex and incredibly bureaucratic and confusing world. We've made new friends, too, who have helped us through the process. Some of them have adopted internationally. In fact, most of the other adoptive families we've met have adopted internationally. Some of our friends were in the middle of difficult Russian adoptions when the Russian government shut down adoptions from Americans. I can't possibly convey how difficult and heartbreaking this has been for some folks who have spent a great deal of time and money pursuing the growth of their families through Russian adoption.
The story received a bit of coverage, but is there a religion angle? The Washington Post thought so, as you can read in this terribly interesting piece headlined "Russian adoption ban will hit disabled children, evangelical Christian families." Here's the lede:
In the “before” photos a pro-adoption protester carried outside the Russian Parliament last week, little Anton Delgado looks bloody, bruised and listless — baby steps away from death.
In the photos from after his adoption, his face fills out, his bandages off. Twenty-three-month-old Anton sits propped up on a couch with his adopted parents and siblings in Texas, thanks — his adoptive mother, Vanessa, says — to the grace of God.
“I prayed for God to tell me the right time to adopt,” said Vanessa Delgado, who met her husband, Jason, at church and regularly quotes Scriptures in her blog posts. “Then I saw a picture of Anton on Facebook, and I knew, ‘That’s my son.’”
Russia’s ban on U.S. adoptions brokered heartbreak for many would-be parents and their adoptive children last week. But the law may hit one community especially hard: evangelical Christians, who in the past five years have begun adopting in droves.
The article goes on to state in the next line that "Adoption statistics are not broken down by faith, but agencies have seen a strong uptick in adoptions from impoverished countries since mega-preachers such as Rick Warren took up adoption as a religious issue five years ago, said Susan Cox, vice president of public policy for Holt International, one of the world’s largest international adoption agencies."
I have definitely heard the same thing -- but I'm wishing we had any hard data to support the idea that "evangelical Christians ... "have begun adopting in droves." Are we sure that this is a recent phenomenon? What do studies tell us precisely, if anything?
We learn that "a number" of adoption ministries have emerged in recent years, including some focused on children with special needs. We're told that "the movement" reached a head in 2010 and that it's driven, in part, by Rick Warren's push to focus on adoption. Christianity Today (to which many of us here GetReligion contribute) has highlighted the issue on its cover.
Given the lack of hard data on adoption breakdowns by religious affiliation, I like the effort to substantiate. I just still wonder what the numbers are.
The story gets back to the Delgados. We learn about Anton's rare skin condition, his abandonment by his biological parents, and how the Delgados came to adopt him. Apparently the Delgados loss of their special needs twins in 2008 motivated them to adopt. One thing I liked about the story was the inclusion of this quote, which accurately represents the general Christian approach to adoption -- something that is not universally shared by other adoptive parents:
“Adoption is a beautiful gift,” she said by phone from Fort Worth, where her kids yelled and played in the background. “God adopted us through Jesus when we did nothing to deserve it. It’s a beautiful picture of the Gospel.”
There are many other stories -- really terribly interesting -- that are shared in this piece.
The story keeps a fairly narrow angle -- on how this Russian ban affects evangelical Christian adoptive parents in America. So it doesn't include background information on what precipitated the ban. Part of that issue relates to concerns over how some Americans have treated the children they adopted from Russia. That might be worth including. There have also been criticisms of some of the agencies mentioned in the article, also worth mentioning.
And along with the problem with the general lack of data, it may have helped to know how many children with special needs have been adopted out of Russia in recent years and what percentage of total adoptions that represents.
Still, kudos for finding a very real and undercovered (in the mainstream press) angle to this huge story.