Adoption: The Baby And The Bathwater

This morning's widespread press discussion of last night's Commons vote to allow adoption by unmarried couples (including same-sex couples) makes much of the political ructions that the issue has caused in the Conservative Party, but there is little reference to public opinion on the issue.The issue is not yet resolved. Separate amendments defining that a couple can be of the same sex or different sex will be voted on next week; and the final bill may still be blocked in the Lords.

The two propositions are bundled together in the bill, but they raise different questions, arouse different responses from the British public, and it is as well to consider them separately. True, most of the British public once found unmarried heterosexual couples and homosexuality alike morally unacceptable; but many now draw a distinction between the two and even those who have no wish to interfere with other people's sexual behaviour in private may have less "modern" views on suitability of couples to bring up children.

As at least one newspaper reported this morning, a recent NCSR British Social Attitudes survey found 84% of the public would oppose the adoption of children by male homosexual couples. In MORI's last survey on this subject (for the Daily Mail in February 2000: Public Attitudes To Section 28), the majority against was much less overwhelming (55% disagreeing that "Gay couples should be allowed to adopt children" to 33% agreeing), but a majority nonetheless.

But the position on co-habiting heterosexual couples is very different. MORI research last year for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF Survey Shatters Stereotypes Of Potential Adopters) explored the general question of adoption by unmarried couples, as well another related controversial issue (not in question in the present bill), whether children should only be adopted by parents of the same ethnic group. On the latter question, there was a two-to-one majority for the status quo; but opinion was strongly in favour of allowing unmarried couples to adopt.

Q Currently, in law, married couples can adopt jointly and single people can adopt individually. Unmarried couples cannot adopt children. To what extent do you agree or disagree that unmarried couples in stable, long-term relationships should be eligible to adopt jointly?

Q Where possible, all children are placed for adoption with parents who are of a similar ethnic background to themselves. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this practice?

Source: MORI/BAAF Base: 2,006 British adults 15+, 6-11 September 2001

Approval of adoption by unmarried couples was fairly uniform across all groups - even the among morally conservative older generation, though significantly less supportive than the young, there was a clear majority of more than two-to-one, with 59% of the 55-and-overs agreeing and only 25% disagreeing. Tories were virtually as supportive as everybody else of unmarried couples being allowed to adopt, 64% agreeing that unmarried couples should be able to adopt, and 30% strongly agreeing.

The BSA survey picked out the degree to which the public draws a moral distinction between the two cases. It found that 37% of the public still think that sexual relations between two adults of the same sex are "always wrong", while 34% think they are "not wrong at all". By contrast, only 9% think pre-marital sex between a man and a woman is "always wrong", 62% that it is "not wrong at all". (As a yardstick of comparison, 61% think a married person having sex with someone other than his or her partner is always wrong, and 66% that sex between a girl and a boy who are both under 16 is always wrong.)

But then British attitudes to co-habitation outside marriage are generally much more liberal than perhaps they once were, and there is wide support for extending many of the civil rights that come with marriage to those who are unmarried. The British Social Attitudes survey found strong majority support for an unmarried but stable couple having many of the same legal rights as a married couple: in the case of "an unmarried couple with no children who have been living together for ten years", three in five thought the woman should "probably" or "definitely" have the same rights to claim for financial support from the man as she would have had if they had been married; 92% thought she should have the same rights as a wife to remain after his death living in a house bought in his name; and, if the same couple had had a child, an overwhelming 97% would give the father the same rights to a say in his child's medical treatment as if he had been married to the mother.

If the question in adoption is a practical rather than a moral one (the best interests of the child), opposition to unmarried couples adopting is likely to be equally muted. Only 27% agreed that "married couples make better parents than unmarried ones", whereas 42% disagreed. On the other hand, 53% agree that "people who want children ought to get married".

But in the case of homosexual couples, public opinion is likely to be very different. As we found a couple of years ago when investigating attitudes to the repeal of Section 28, even respondents who claim a generally tolerant attitude to homosexuality become far more cautious as soon as the question involves any contact with children. This change, unlike the other, is likely to be unpopular and the government would be well advised to be prepared to justify it to a hostile audience.

It is possible that a change in the law will have a disproportionate effect on the "market" for adoptions. The MORI/BAAF research also found that cohabiting couples who are not married are more likely to say they have considered adopting than married couples (41% and 25% respectively). Reason enough to give careful consideration to a bill that in all respects but one is likely to generate significant public support.