Maternal relinquishment: reforms, rights, and other myths

Abstract

Certain perennial controversies within adoption law and practice cannot be ignored. In Ireland, for example, redress schemes enabling access to previously sealed birth or medical records have served to perpetuate discrimination and inequality, while reparations for abuses suffered in Mother and Baby Institutions have excluded certain categories of survivor (McGettrick). In respect of England, the UK Government still refuses to offer apology, in contrast to their Scottish and Welsh counterparts. Moreover, judicial acknowledgement of the intergenerational impacts of severing natal bonds in the present day can often be inconsistent. Recent case law at times harks back to an earlier era: parental consent to an adoption can be dispensed with quite quickly and relatively easily, and judicial bars can be placed on contact, to embed new family, adoptive “permanence.” The right to respect for family life (under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) remains delicate and is easily infringed—and then justified—within this area of family law.<br/