EUROPE/SPAIN - "Children have rights": Professionals of ethics launch a campaign to prevent children being adopted by same-sex couples

Madrid (Fides Service) - “Children have Rights” is the title of a campaign lunched by the Federation of Associations of Professionals of Ethics FAPE to prevent the proposed amendment to Spain’s civil code to allow people of the same sex to ‘marry’ and also to adopt children. The members of the Federation are professionals dedicated to promoting and defending ethic values in public life.
In a statement presented to the government FAPE summarises the experience of its members in various ambits in relation to the development and education of minors. The statement is signed by jurists, medical doctors, psychiatrists, paediatricians, psychologists, pedagogues primary and secondary school teachers, and social workers all of whom defend the rights of children deprived of their natural family to grow in an environment which contributes to the balanced growth of their physical, intellectual and moral personality. They urge the government to recognise the rights of children to have as parents the figure of a male and a female and to belong to a family, similar to the natural family.
The statement laments the absence of studies on the consequences on children of adoption by same-sex couples, since the results obtained in most cases are not representative. All the same it is significant that the evidence available suggests considerable differences with regard to sexual orientation of children brought up by homosexual parents compared with children brought up by heterosexual parents. In any case the signees say that the realisation of these investigations would implicate the use of minors as the object of experimentation and this would be contrary to existing laws, not to mention the physical and psychic risks in this sort of investigation.
They call on the government to respect the juridical norms for adoption. Antonio del Moral García, a doctor in law and Supreme Court Prosecutor recalls that in Spanish law norms for adoption are based on principles of the child’s insertion into a family and the primacy of the child’s wellbeing. This norm in turn ratifies other general regulations including the International Declaration on the Rights of the Child (1959), the International Convention on Children’s Rights (1989) and Spain’s own constitution. Antonio del Moral recalls that adoption has always been an institution intended to recreate what exists in nature where every human person is the fruit of a father and a mother. A right to adopt does not exist and if the child has a right to be adopted, he or she has the right to be adopted by a father and a mother, as determined by nature. As the European Court of Human Rights has affirmed to prevent two people of the same sex from adopting a child is not an act of discrimination. Whereas to allow as homosexuals are demanding two people of the same sex to adopt a child while denying this possibility to a couple in which the sexual component does not exist, to a couple consisting of a brother and sister for example, would be discriminatory. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 16/5/2005, righe 36, parole 491)