In writing the other day about the bias against overweight people seeping into the adoption world via Asia, I was prompted to take another look at the new regulations China has imposed that came into effect at the beginning of last month.

Although I gather that Brian Stuy and his Research-China.Org tends to go along with the Chinese government's assertions that a decline in the numbers of children coming into orphanages means only the creme de la creme of prospective adoptive parents ... however creme is to be defined ... should be allowed to adopt Chinese children, I have serious doubts that this is the case.

As I said in this post from a while back, "Sorry, but I don't believe the Chinese government is tightening up adoption rules because they're running out of unwanted baby girls, but rather simply because they can."

Although much of the evidence is purely demographic, there is substantial proof of female infanticide in China that certainly reduces the numbers of adoptable girls, but even the murder of thousands of babies unlucky enough to be born female has not left a dearth of abandoned children.

Although there are some stipulations made for parents wanting to adopt special needs kids ... an extra five years allowed, for example ... I suspect that there aren't enough hopeful adoptive parents in the world to absorb all the "imperfect" kids in China, much less those equipped to deal with often very complicated disabilities.

So, here we have a country that wants to put on a pretty face ... a demanding pretty face ... that now insists that adoptive families aren't overweight, don't have any hearing loss or blindness (in even one eye out of the four patents would have), but do have all their fingers and toes. Parent also can't be too ugly ... no severe facial deformity ... have any more than four kids under 18, and have assets at least $80,000.

For more, see the next post.