Year: 1982
Type: article
Abstract: IN 1972 the Houghton Committee recommended that after divorce a restriction should be placed upon the adoption of children by their custodial parents and step-parents.At the time, comparatively little was known about step-parent ad~ptions,~ although some social workers had already expressed serious misgivings4 And the importance of encouraging continuing contacts between children and their absent (non-custodial) parent was, and has remained, controversial.But Houghton failed to provide a detailed justification of its proposal.It argued that to break a child's legal links with its missing parent, usually the father,5 was " inappropriate and could be damaging."Since it was desirable to recognise openly the consequences of divorce, adoption ought not to be used to conceal the natural relationship.And the child might suffer if contact was severed with the missing parent and other (paternal) relatives.However, although Houghton accepted that these situations involved widely varying family circumstances, it went no further.In particular, focusing upon the potential disadvantages of step-parent adoptions, the Committee paid little attention to their possible benefits: " . . . in most cases the adopting relatives are already caring for the child and will continue to do so whether or not they adopt him."Nor did it 1 Report of the Departmental Committee on the Adoption of Children, Cmnd.5107 (1972).S. 10 (3) of the Children Act 1975, the statutory provision discussed in this article, is but one of a number of provisions designed by Houghton to restrict family adoptions.S. 11 (4) lays down that the same test is to be applied to the step parent who applies alone.S. 11 (3) bars adoption by a mother or father of a child applying alone, save where the other natural parent is dead or cannot be found or where there is some other reason justifying his exclusion.If relatives apply, s. 37, if ever brought into operation, will require the court to consider the alternative of custodianship.This provision will catch a stepparent not caught by ss. 10 (3) and 11 (4), for instance, where the divorce court jurisdiction is not available because the first marriage was terminated by death.2 S. 10 (3) is not in terms restricted to joint adoptions involving the custodial parent but in practice this will be the situation.3 As the First Report to Parliament on the Children Act 1975 (H.C. 268 (1979-80) ), para.32 put it, " The whole field of adoption by parents and stepparents is largely unexplored."See B. 'fvladdox, The Half-Parent (1975); and; for lawyers' comments, A. Bisset-Johnson, Stepparent Adoptions in English and Canadian Law," m
Source: Modern Law Review
Author: R. W. Rawlings
Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1999253269