Adoption campaigners criticise contact veto plan

Adoption rights campaigners have said that allowing natural mothers a veto on contact would set back tracing rights "more than a decade".

Groups representing both adopted people and natural mothers hit out at the proposal, which was mooted at an Adoption Authority information and tracing conference at the end of last month.

Geoffrey Shannon, the authority’s chairman, told the conference that “a veto device could be used as a mechanism” to deal with retrospective tracing rights for adopted people, similar to that used in Alberta, Canada.