NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S.-based advocates of international adoption have grown accustomed to bad news in recent years and now have new cause for dismay: a bill moving through Russia's parliament that would bar Americans from adopting Russian children.
The measure won overwhelming approval Friday in the lower house of parliament. It's retaliation for a new U.S. law imposing sanctions on Russians deemed to be human rights violators.
The fate of the bill is uncertain. It needs approval by parliament's upper house and by President Vladimir Putin. Yet already it has added to an array of controversies and policy changes that have muddled the image of international adoption in the U.S.
The number of foreign adoptions has plunged overall in the past eight years, with an especially sharp drop from Russia.
