Open adoption to unmarried couples, lower the minimum age required for parents, and also facilitate the adoption of abandoned children: the National Assembly is considering Wednesday, December 2 a bill LREM which bristles the right and some associations.
The majority boasts
"a text of progress"
and
"updating"
of the adoption, supported by the government, and which will be on the menu of deputies at first reading from the afternoon and until Friday, defended. by the Secretary of State for Children Adrien Taquet.
Read also: Why should you adopt your spouse's child?
The bill is the result of a report to the government at the end of 2019, co-written by LREM MP Monique Limon and Senator LR Corinne Imbert, and promises lively debates on this subject touching the privacy of certain MPs, themselves adopted. or adopters.
This involves
“facilitating and securing adoption”
, and
“strengthening the status of ward of the State”
, given the disparities and difficulties in applying the last law on adoption in 2016. Flagship measure , the opening of full adoption to PACS or cohabiting couples must make it possible to put an end to
“discrimination relating to union rules or to homoparentality”
, according to the head of LREM on this text, Coralie Dubost.
Currently, only one of the couple can adopt the child.
Marriage is today
"not a guarantee of stability"
for children, also justifies the rapporteur Monique Limon.
But LR MPs are against this change, in the name of what they call
“the best interests of the child”
.
"Marriage is a stable union"
and it is the
"most protective framework"
, according to Xavier Breton.
More generally, he points in this bill to
"pragmatic measures, which go in the right direction"
but also
"other provisions, legally flawed or ideological"
, in line with the bill opening medically assisted procreation (PMA ) to all women, under consideration in Parliament.
The association La Manif pour tous denounces
"a dangerous bill, examined in a hurry"
, and the president of Sens Commun Laurence Trochu a text
"coated with good feelings but poorly put together"
.
"A serious step backwards"
The deputies lowered in committee last week the minimum age required for each adoptive parent, from 28 to 26 years.
And the minimum duration of community of life has been reduced from two to one year.
The bill also set a maximum age difference of 45 years between the youngest of the adopters and the youngest of the children to be adopted, a difference which was raised to 50 years in committee to take account of changes in society.
The debate on the filiation of children born through surrogacy (surrogacy) abroad, which resurfaced in committee, will not fail to return to the hemicycle.
The bill also aims to improve the functioning of family councils, bodies supervising state wards in the departments, and also addresses the issue of children declared abandoned by their parents.
This last point is discussed.
Monique Limon intends to help with their simple adoption, currently too rare, by removing the possibility, for parents handing over the child to Social Assistance for Children with a view to his admission as a ward of the State, to consent or not. upon adoption.
Read also: Wind of criticism against the adoption law
But several players in the sector are standing firm, including the federation of EFA (Childhood and Adopted Families) associations which co-wrote a very critical “white paper”.
The article 13 in question
"raises the most difficulties"
and
"could be declared unconstitutional and unconventional"
with regard to the European Convention on Human Rights, we can read.
The absence of consent from the biological parents would be
"a serious step backwards"
.
But, replies Monique Limon,
"the parents' decision must first be to say that they are not capable of raising their children"
.
The number of families waiting to realize their adoption plan is much higher than the adoptions carried out each year.
According to the latest figures known, some 650 wards of the state were adopted in 2018, and 615 children adopted abroad in the same year - an international aspect not addressed in the bill.
