THE LEGAL EFFECTS OF ADOPTION

Authors

  • GILBERT D KENNEDY

Abstract

Adoption is a widespread practice, carefully regulated to prevent abuses, and fully accepted today as a beneficial measure, especially in the interests of the child. The laity’s perception in most English-speaking countries is that the adopted child becomes a member of the new family and is no longer a member of the old one once the curtain falls behind the adoption. But the law has failed to draw the curtain completely, so while legislatures transfer, piecemeal, rights and obligations from the natural to the adopting family and leave the common law to fill in the gaps, more and more anomalies appear daily. The time has come for the law to catch up to the social practice. In a special edition of the Canadian Bar Review devoted wholly to this article, Gilbert D. Kennedy thoroughly examines the legal effects of adoption, past and present. The author proposes draft provisions for adoption legislation that, if enacted by the legislatures across Canada, will finally bring the adopted child fully into the new family and completely out of the old one, in law, as well as in fact.

Keywords:

Adoption

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Published

1955-08-01

Issue

Section

Legal Commentary