In a heartbreaking development for U.S. families looking to adopt children from Russia, President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law last week which banned U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children.
From CNN:
Russian officials portrayed the latest legislation as a tit-for-tat retaliation against a new U.S. law that seeks to punish Russians accused of human-rights violations.
… Moscow’s legislation – which also bans U.S.-funded civic groups in the country – puts concrete action to rising Russian complaints, voiced most vehemently by Mr. Putin, that the U.S.’s own human-rights failings give it no credibility to lecture others.
But the adoption ban has exposed Mr. Putin to criticism both internationally and within his own government. Critics allege that the law makes political pawns out of Russian orphans, whose living conditions can be dire and prospects for adoption often slim.
The Russian ban is set to go into effect Jan. 1. Adoption workers and Russian officials said it will effectively halt new adoptions and end those already in progress.
Russell Moore, professor and Vice President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, adopted two sons from Russia and wrote an outstanding book on the subject, called Adopted for Life.
Moore wrote a blog for The Gospel Coalition yesterday, titled “The Answer to Russia’s Orphan Crisis.” Here is the ending of the piece:
The answer to orphanages teeming with doomed children isn’t, ultimately, American adoption. The answer is, ideally, a Russia so revived by the gospel of adoption in Christ that Christian families receive children even as they have been received into the household of Christ. Ultimately, of course, we seek a landscape devoid of orphanages, as American cities are devoid of slave auctions. To that end we pray the gospel would stabilize families and uproot the causes of orphanhood: poverty, alcoholism, illegitimacy, and so on.
Until then, we preach the gospel to every creature, including our Russian friends. And, until then, we stand for what Jesus cares about, including the “least of these,” those orphaned in the womb, in foster care, and in orphanages at home and around the world.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. But a different gospel, one that says to the hurting, “Be warmed and filled” (Jas. 2:16), is a gospel to which we must say “Nyet.”
I am personally aware of several Presbyterians who have already met their Russian children but whose adoption processes are now halted. Pray for the children. Pray for their adoptive U.S. families.
Pray that the Russian people will speak to their President and tell him that they would rather have Russian children be adopted into families – even American families – rather than sitting unloved in orphanages, outside the bonds of family.
“Putin Signs Ban on U.S. Adoptions” (Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2012)