LONDON, December 30, 2005 – Same-sex couples, whether in a
‘civil partnership’ or not, can from today jointly adopt children – as can
unmarried opposite-sex couples. Previously, adoption law in England and
Wales allowed individuals – both straight and gay – to adopt, but this gave
their partners few parental rights.
has never been a law prohibiting gay men and women from adopting.
Adoption and Children Act 2002 came into force today and adoption support
groups say that the new law will encourage more people to come forward and
Any unmarried couple, including a
same-sex couple, wishing to adopt will need to be able to demonstrate that
their partnership is an ‘enduring family relationship’.
other provision of the new Act is that natural parents who gave up their
children for adoption now have the right to try to trace them through an
intermediary service, providing the child agrees.
addition, the Act allows foster parents to apply for ‘special guardianship’
orders that, if granted, will enable them to take continuous responsibility
for children until their eighteenth birthday.
changes will have a major impact on thousands of families,” said Felicity
Collier, chief executive of the British Association for Adoption and
there are people eagerly awaiting [today] because they are an unmarried
couple who would like to adopt jointly, because they are fostering a child
and want to make sure the child can stay with them for the rest of their
childhood or because they would desperately like know more about a child
they gave up for adoption many years ago.
welcome the fact that no identifying information about adopted adults will
be given without their consent but we believe there are many adopted adults
who have not made the first approach in case it is not welcomed by their
birth parent but who would want to respond if they knew their birth parent
was concerned to know how they were.
up adoption to unmarried partners will encourage more people to consider
adoption and this is very important at a time when too many children wait
too long in temporary care waiting for an adoptive family or, in some cases,
never have the chance of adoption at all.
carers often want to make a permanent commitment to a child whom they love
and are caring for but for one reason or another it is not right to legally
sever the child from their birth parents through adoption. Special
guardianship will give the child much greater security about the future and
we welcome this major new order,” she said.
The Scottish Executive is currently reviewing adoption policy in Scotland.
Stonewall resource page on same-sex