Adoption law changes - Good, but not good enough

Congratulations are due to the civil rights activists who have persuaded Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone to look again at her Adoption and Information Tracing Bill and cut from it at least one of its more obnoxious — and quite unrealistic — proposals.

The original draft had a clause that said adopted people who ask for information about their birth — chiefly medical and family histories — would first have to sign a presumably legal undertaking to not contact either or both of their biological parents.