Dateline NBC has set up a website in preparation for their show on Guatemalan adoptions airing Sunday, January 20th, at 7 pm (ET). On this webpage you can enter a photo or video and share your family’s adoption story with the possibility of it being shown on Dateline. Personally I will not be sending anything in as I’m more than wary of the context it could be put in.

An article by NBC correspondent Victoria Corderi "graces" the front page of the webpage. One sentence in the first paragraph immediately angered me. “The market is driven by the demand for adoptions from prospective parents in the U.S.” Market? Did any of you look at your adoption as a market, and your child a product that could be bought there? This is a stab at the system, but highly insensitive and demeaning to the children we have adopted and to us, their parents.

I strongly disagree that more children are available for adoption because people want to adopt. This is a myth perpetuated by anti-adoption sources. When adoption is not available, some children do stay with their birth parents, while others are taken to orphanages, and the much less fortunate are left on streets or in garbage cans.

From Victoria’s description of the upcoming program, it will be interesting, upsetting and perhaps even more than a little one sided. I will be out of town with no computer access at the time, but I will be responding when I get back.

And here’s more information on the adoption process in Guatemala from the JCICS. I’ve summarized the important information for you, but if you have time you can read it at this link.

1. PGN stopped processing pending cases, new cases, and cases with previos on 1/1/08. After all these cases are registered with the new Central Authority, they will continue processing them.

2. All cases in process must be registered within 30 business days of 1/1//08 which would make the “due” date 2/11/08. The Central Authority is responsible for making this process as smooth and organized as possible, and clearly defining the term “cases in process.”

3. The Joint Council continues to recommend that new adoptions not be started. At this point in time, there is no possibility to even start a new adoption with the Guatemalan government. In addition, until a US agency is accredited under Hague Convention regulations, they cannot facilitate adoptions from Guatemala. The Hague Convention will go into force on April 1st, 2008 in the US.

Representatives of the JCICS are planning to meet with the new president in February, and are keeping close tabs on the “in process” cases. They made their own list of criteria for being “grandfathered in” under the old adoption system, but ultimately the Central Authority will make that decision.

Meanwhile, the Department of State (DOS) has issued a warning against initiating new Guatemalan adoptions due to all the unknowns of the new adoption system. This makes sense to most of us, but if there are still agencies out there trying to get people to accept referrals, I strongly suggest that they be reported to the JCICS. In my opinion, at this point that would be highly unethical, and any agency doing it should not receive accreditation to continue adoptions under the Hague Convention.

The DOS didn’t fail to mention that the US may not continue to allow adoptions from Guatemala after we implement the Hague on April 1st, 2008 unless all of Guatemala’s adoption procedures meet Hague requirements. They also stated that under the new Guatemalan adoption law, only people living in countries that function under the Hague Convention can adopt from Guatemala in the future. The DOS promises that the US Embassy in Guatemala will continue to process cases that exit PGN.