China's policy is still one child and that results in female babies being dumped and left for dead, because most families want a male child.
Snipped for relevance. I'd like to address this misinformation about China.
First, the one child policy only applies to about half the population. Most families that want more than one, and have at least a lower middle class income, pay the fine/ tax and keep or have a second child.
Everywhere you go in China you will see families with ONE little girl, dressed to the nines in party dresses, playing outside, at the zoo, etc. These are
very loved and cherished little girls.
Second, female babies aren't being "dumped and left for dead"-- the overwhelming majority of females that are left in public places, are
extremely well cared for, well nourished, and left in highly public places so that they will be found promptly and placed in the child welfare system. You simply do not hear about baby girls being found in dumpsters.
I am both a birth parent, and an adoptive parent. One of my daughters is from an orphanage in China that has about 400 kids-- around 50 to 75 were female. The rest were "damaged" males, with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and various mental and physical deformities. "Damaged" boys are left to be raised in the children's welfare system at FAR higher rates than healthy baby girls-- that is a dirty little secret that seldom makes the evening news. The current "wait" for a healthy baby girl in our agency is 7 years. SEVEN years, with a registry of waiting list numbers. "Damaged" children, or "waiting" children, older, and/ or with health problems-- lots of those kids available today. The flood gates from the 1990's have closed, and China is not "easy" to adopt from-- they have enormous lists of requirements for prospective parents, some of which include educational level, and body mass index.
The Chinese system has no foster care, and NO MECHANISM to lawfully relinquish a child for adoption. China has tremendous social struggles, and no safety net for the poor, or teen moms. Every country comes to international adoption because they have tremendous social and economic problems that make raising children very, very difficult.
I don't want to go any more off topic, but the myths about healthy baby girls being dumped like garbage in China are, for the largest part, completely untrue. There is a cultural preference for boys, true, particularly among the less educated and the rural communities. But the overwhelming majority of parents there love and cherish their baby girls, just as they do here and elsewhere. So many of the kids who are left to be raised by children's welfare are from mothers who simply cannot raise a child alone because they are young, poor, or the child has overwhelming handicaps (many of which would not even be a handicap in the U.S.). It would break your heart to learn about the notes left with some of the foundlings, tearful pleas to care for the child and give it a better life, birthdates and astrological signs, etc. The decision to abandon a child must be absolutely heartwrenching for most of the young women.
I pray for the woman who gave birth to my daughter and abandoned her, that this woman will be able to have peace, and a sense that her child is okay and thriving. I pray that she is able to forgive herself for what she must have felt she had to do. And that is the message I will raise my daughter with-- that she was never garbage to be dumped, but that her birth mom did the best she could to make sure she would have a better life, even if that life was with different people. That her birth mom made the hardest decision of her life. And I honor her decision by loving this child as if she grew within me, and doing my best for her as her new mom.
Please, please give the Chinese women a break. I really hate that they are so reviled for giving up their kids. Most of these women have few to no choices. Abandoning their children may not be a choice any of us might make, but I firmly believe most of them agonized over their choices, and made the best choice they could for the child. The child welfare system, though it has problems, is still vastly better than the living condition of most of the poor.