Legally, the act of adoption involves a person other than the natural parent of a child legally assuming the responsibility of parenting that child.

For an adoption to happen, one thing is of prime importance – the natural or biological parents have to voluntarily give up the responsibility of parenting their child, and the foster parents, i.e., the people who have stepped forward to assume that responsibility, have to agree to take care of the child. Child adoption is considered a noble deed, as it provides a parentless/homeless child an opportunity at a new life and a new home.

Who Facilitates an Adoption?

For an adoption to be a legally recognized process, there has to be an authorized body that oversees the entire process and facilitates it. Usually, an adoption is facilitated by an adoption agency. An adoption agency is an organization that provides adoption services to couples looking to adopt a child. This kind of an organization looks at the different aspects related to an adoption – verifying the appropriateness of the couple that is looking to adopt a child, the consent of the biological parent for the adoption, etc.

Why Adopt a Child?

There are a number of reasons for a couple to want to adopt a child. Child adoption or baby adoption is seen most commonly in a situation when the couple is unable to have their own children. This is what can be termed biological need. A couple may desperately want to have a child of their own, but may not be able to, due to a number of medical reasons. Such a couple would ideally look at adoption as a definite option.

There are some people who do not want to go through the process of childbirth, and such couples might find it to be easier and sometimes safer for the health of the mother to adopt a child rather than carrying a baby to term.

There are some people who carry inherited diseases in their DNA who decide not to pass these forward to their biological child. 

Then there are some other people who may tend to adopt children out of their humaneness. There are families in the US that have 5 to 10 children, all of them adopted. This kind of adoption is done only out of sheer love for life and compassion towards all that need caring.

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With less stigma about unmarried mothers, readily available contraception and abortion there are fewer and fewer unwanted babies coming up for adoption.

This means that many adopters may consider older, disabled and emotionally damaged children. There are almost 80,000 children living in care in the UK, many could be available for adoption or foster care.

Many people are put off adoption by the months of intimate and intrusive questions about you and your partner’s personal lives. They check your suitability to be parents, there are home visits, there are police checks on you, your family, your friends and years spent on waiting lists. And years dealing with Social Services.

While no one wants a lax system that could bring vulnerable children into contact with dangerous people, there has to be a better way.

Perhaps if the adoption laws were made easier those thousands of children in care would get loving homes and get chance to be part of a family.

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