It is no longer sufficient to want to be a parent and provide a loving home to a child who has none. Would-be adoptive parents now have to undergo an assessment process that has surprised both media pundits and the public alike with its intrusiveness and arbitrariness.
Over the past two weeks many adoptive parents have spoken of the almost pornographic tests they have had to pass just to demonstrate their capacity to become loving parents. The testimony of these people is a strong indicator that those charged with helping find homes for children who have none are themselves deeply antipathetic to the philosophy of adoption.
The 1990s is not the only decade in which adoption has been suspect. When the 1926 Adoption Act was passed in Britain, lawyers were concerned about the threat to inheritance whilst the middle classes feared the impact of bastardy and bad blood.
Similarly, concerns were expressed by the Catholic Church in Ireland when adoption was legalised in the late 1950s that family life would be weakened.
These misgivings rapidly evaporated and over the subsequent 20 years increasing numbers of children were placed for adoption. Whereas adoption was the solution to the stigma and poverty faced by unmarried mothers for over two decades, it is now the solution of last resort.
The potent images of bewildered mothers in the 1950s being coerced into placing their babies for adoption is regrettably a reality and emphasised the emotional abuse that such women suffered at the hand of a puritanical and harsh society. These folk memories are still part of the public's view of adoption, although they bear no relation to the reality of modern adoption practices.
The numbers of babies being placed for adoption declined steadily during the 1980s and now most adopted babies come from overseas.
It is not only the tragic stories from the past that served to make adoption unpopular and reinforce the prevailing orthodoxy that it was anti-woman; by the 1980s a crop of social workers trained in a particular ideology entered the work force and brought a specific ethos to bear on their assessment procedures.
Several influential works which were quintessentially Marxist in ideology had an enormous impact. In The Character of Adoption by Benet (1975) the author argues that the economic system impoverishes certain groups and so the necessity to abandon children has been forced upon poor people by Western social welfare practices. It is one of the first and longest-lasting exports to countries that come within the orbit of world capitalism. Moreover, Benet believes that the adoptor gains a child at the expense of another because of the power and wealth differential of one, relative to the other.
Another vitriolic tome, Death by Adoption by Shawyer (1979) regards adoption as a violent political act of aggression against women which renders them powerless. Thus adoption has been politicised, with the adoptive parents cast in the role of oppressor.
The mind-set of social workers who regard adoption as an almost repellent practice raises grave questions impinging on a number of current issues. A stubborn ideology which saw birth mothers as victims of oppression by a powerful elite is now likely to have itself turned oppressor of those same women by its insistence that single motherhood or even abortion is always preferable to adoption.
As we read of over 3,700 children in care in Ireland, the most common reason being failure to cope by the parent, we must ask if any of these single mothers were given even a scintilla of information about adoption.
Could some of these family breakdowns have been avoided if information on all alternatives were provided?
How many women choose the destructive route to abortion clinics in Britain because their non-directive counselling is incomplete?
When information on adoption is sought, is it provided truthfully or are those even considering adoption presented as pariahs and misfits for contemplating such an act?
How are birth mothers who courageously opt for adoption counselled, or are they again emotionally abused by being told half truths about modern adoption?
These questions are imponderable and unanswerable.
The British government has recently taken action to change attitudes to adoption. In Ireland they are also in need of rehabilitation, particularly so as to ensure that birth mothers, adoptive parents and - above all - would-be adoptees are treated with dignity and not as political or ideological commodities.
The Department of Health should institute a review of adoption-related attitudes and practices among social workers in the field and among those working with women with crisis pregnancies.
Consideration should also be given to including adoptive parents in the assessment procedure - who better to judge the suitability of a couple to adopt than those who themselves are adoptive parents?
In addition, by amending legislation to the Freedom of Information Act, the files on those who were rejected as suitable to become adoptive parents could be examined retrospectively by those wishing to do so. At present no explanation is provided when there is a negative outcome to the adoption assessment.
The media have a crucial role in highlighting the positive aspects of modern adoption and they could be as pivotal in re-establishing adoption as a real alternative for many with problem pregnancies as they were in giving prominence to the harsh and cruel practices of the past.
However the testimony of two groups, voiceless at present, will contribute more than all of these approaches combined. Those birth mothers who made the tough choice against received wisdom by placing their much-loved baby for adoption and who have dealt with their loss and accepted their decision should speak.
The loudest of all will be those adoptees, stable, contented adults who are a credit to the mother that gave life to them and to the love of their adoptive parents.
Patricia Casey is professor of psychiatry at the Mater Hospital/UCD.