Adopting an attitude towards Adoption

Turns I was right to try and join the dots between abortions and baby adoptions.

With abortions in Europe no longer such a taboo [see left], and single mothers are fairly commonplace (In the UK about 1 out of 4 families with dependent children are single-parent families!), it's no wonder that there aren't so many babies up for adoption.

This means that the UK and France (countries I have an interest in given that I straddle [sic] the two) find that adoption campaigners pick on the same subject: social services are slowing down the adoption process because they're dealing with a child who is often a few years old, rather than a newborn. The problem being, of course, that, by the time social/legal services have digested the issue, the child's likely a few years older again and even less easy to adopt for potential parents like me hoping for the 'Traditional Family Dream'. [see right]

America, meanwhile, holy land that it is, does have stronger views on Abortions, and adoption agencies have picked up on that, resulting in the Juno phenomenon.

It appears, that for between $4-10,000 you can adopt a baby in America straight from delivery. Meanwhile, however, Americans appear to be adopting faster from abroad than from their hood. The U.S. Department of State reported 12,753 immigrant visas issued to orphans entering the U.S. in 2009. 
Why? It's a question of waiting time (families are more particular about what they want when adopting from their neighbourhood than if adopting from abroad), fees, legal complications (that differ per country) and many other quagmires of complicated footnotes, secret costs and emotional pitfalls.

And here I sit, feeling like I'm oddly online shopping for a child.

I'm weighing up the costs, delivery, the ability to congest all the terms and conditions before I sign on any dotted lines, different countries/companies' policies and the knowledge that I'll probably never know for sure if I've made the right choice until it's been delivered to my door step and I'm making it part of my every day life.