This article refers to changes to the current Chinese adoption law that were proposed in late August '98. We do not have any additional information about the current situation beyond what is posted in these two articles.
Lawmakers are having second thoughts on relaxing domestic adoption procedures, fearing it will put the one-child policy in jeopardy, reports said yesterday.
Xinhua quoted Zhang Xuwu, deputy director of the National People's Congress Legal Committee, as saying its members were hesitant to relax the restriction.
Existing laws require adoptive parents to be childless. Each couple can only adopt one orphaned or handicapped child.
The standing committee began studying a draft law in August to remove "excessive restrictions" on adoption procedures, including permitting parents with children to adopt and allowing them to adopt more than one child.
Mr Zhang said most committee members feared such relaxations might "cause negative impact on family planning work and create extra difficulties".
Instead, they believed a clause should be added stipulating that civil affairs departments responsible for adoption matters should "step up co-operation" with family planning departments to "strengthen control over family planning".
However, some members favoured a relaxation on the grounds it would help solve the problem of abandoned children, said Mr Zhang. That would ease the Government's burden in looking after abandoned children and promote "socialist civilisation and humanitarianism".
Despite the difference of opinion among members, they agreed to remove two qualifications for adoptive parents. The draft law originally prohibited parents who had "character problems" or carried "contagious diseases" from adopting children. The members decided to strike off the restrictions as they were too vague.
The lawmakers also discussed measures to further simplify foreign adoption, Xinhua said
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