Information has been trickling into the news about China’s adoption programs and the corruption that might lie behind them.  It would be foolish to assume that everything the Chinese government has told the adoption agencies (and thus adopting parents) over the years is true; every international adoption program has its dark underside, and trafficking is always a possibility when there is money to be made from it.

And none of the “truths” we have been presented with over the years has been palatable.

Is China a country where infanticide is practiced, in households and in orphanages? A society in which the law forces families to give up their children? A place in which economic hardship does not permit the luxury of feeding a child? Or, as one blogger is suggesting, is China filling its orphanages with older kids by deceiving families into sending their children away so they can be educated with the promise that they will return, unbeknownst to the adopting families?

It’s difficult to know how to respond, and tempting to just wish it would all go away. There is really no hard evidence, and we are unlikely to see any.