Definition of Adoption
"To take as one's own"

Adoption: a permanent form of foster care sanctioned in law. Introduced originally to care for children in need, deprived of their own families. Its greatest benefit on a state level was to save the public purse with the expectation that 90% of illegitimate children would be adopted.

A legal definition to explain that an adopted child would have the same right of inheritance from their adoptive parental estate as if born naturally, and:

That adopting parents would have the same parental rights and obligations to the child as those of natural parents.

Adoption is a cure for infertility

The adoption workers main concern was based on the premise that the emotional distress caused by infertility and childlessness within marriage could be alleviated by providing an infant young enough to just "as if born" to the adopting couple.

Adoption legislation does not come into play unless/until a parent or guardian of the child has already willingly signed a consent to adoption surrendering their parental rights to the state, whereupon the state becoming the guardian of the surrendered child is then responsible for looking after the child's best interest.

The control of a mothers pregnancy, birth, and post confinement period was outside the jurisdiction of the meaning of the Act. i.e. childbirth and adoption were entirely unrelated issues.

The original intention of adoption was to provide alternative care for a child deprived of his own family. It was not meant to set about depriving the child of his own family.

Nowhere in the Adoption Act or its accompanying regulations does it state that a child's best interest is best served by being removed from his own mother at birth - or thereafter, to be made available for adoption.

Except in cases of abandonment, abuse, or neglect, authorities had no jurisdiction to interfere in the primary relationship between a mother/parent and her child. Rather, it was considered to be in the child's best interest to remain within his or her own family and provisions were to be made available to enable a mother to care for her child.

Adoption and fostering, in that order, were considered a second best option, and only if remaining with his or her own mother was not a possible option.

Adoption was only considered to be in a child's best interest as the preferred option to that of becoming a state ward, and only if a mother had surrendered her child to the state.

The legislature made it clear that the legislation is to promote the welfare of infants, but it deals with the matter on the basis that their welfare will be best served if they are brought up with their own parents in their own homes, and that adoption is only second best when, from the nature of things, the best interest for some reason is not available (R.v.B., [1960] V.R.407)