Beginning this year, China has said it will be much choosier about who can adopt, thanks to a decrease in the number of orphaned and abandoned children there. With few exceptions, parents must be under age 50 and married, with a high school diploma and an annual income of $30,000. Those who are obese or have a history of mental illness don't qualify.

Would-be parents have increasingly turned to Guatemala, where waiting times are shorter and the supply of babies has ramped up to meet the demand. More than half the population lives in poverty, and some parents have been pressured by lawyers and other intermediaries to surrender their children for adoption to offer them a better life. Others are abducted or taken from their parents under false pretenses, and women have even been paid to get pregnant and give up their babies.

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If the U.S. ratifies [the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions] this year, as expected, adoptions from Guatemala will not be allowed until that country is in compliance with the convention's guidelines--in particular a requirement that the government serve as a clearinghouse for adoptions.

...[T]he rules are necessary to ensure that foreign adoption is about finding parents for kids who need them--not the other way around.