Cheaper condoms shouldn’t be puzzling.
Here’s a rather annoying article:
US families puzzled by tighter China adoptions
It talks about certain people being “ruled out” for Chinese adoptions, which is not really true. It’s more like certain people will be bumped to the back of the list. There’s been a lot of talk about how supposedly fat people will not be able to adopt — they are one of the groups of people who will be bumped back — but you’d need to have a body mass index of 40 for that. To put things in perspective, at 5′ 5″, I would have to go up to 240 pounds before I’d match that. I guess the logic is, why give someone a baby if the parents have a condition that will significantly shorten their lives? You can’t predict the future, but someone with a body mass of 25 or even 30 will probably be significantly healthier, in terms of risk of heart attack, stroke, etc. that someone who is 40 or over.
The article doesn’t mention that fewer children are becoming available until paragraph eight. It gives the words of someone who appears to be an expert, but then in the following paragraphs those assertions are questioned by regular people who have no way of knowing whether what this person, Wu, is saying is true.
Actually, I had been talking with someone who volunteers at an orphanage, and has another friend who is deeply involved with orphanages in Shanghai. According to her, in the past couple years there has been a big decrease in the number of kids ending up in Shanghai orphanages, as well as others across the country.
One big factor is the increasing availability of cheap birth control. Now people have a wide range of condom choices to choose from, from the expensive Japanese ones like Okamoto, to American brands like Durex, to the French Jizzbon (!) brand, to cheap local brands. The local brands can be iffy, but they are better than nothing. I have even seen articles rating them in women’s magazines.
Another factor is that there has been a surge in adoption by Chinese people, especially in the last year. My friend said that six handicapped children were adopted by local couples in her friend’s orphanage in the past year or so.
So maybe it’s not a big conspiracy or something! Maybe the offical explanation really is true.