Adoption

To set this debate in the right context I propose only the adoption of children in this country (Britain) count under this motion. Also by "legally allowed" I mean any couple under the current structure who would normally be allowed to adopt. This means factors such as criminal records, poverty, mental health, age (too old or too young) will usually mean that couples are not legally allowed to adopt. By couples I mean those who are married or have a civil union since for this debate I see these partnerships as equal. The most important thing that I will set in this motion is what I mean by compulsory. For this debate I say it means all accepted couples are legally required to adopt at least one child and will be fined, say ï¿½50, after being together 25 years if they do not comply without adequate reason (not legal or no children to adopt). To define this as a valid mechanism I will prove why the fine is so important. The fine is firstly put in place as a punishment for not abiding by the laws of the British Government. Why I see a fine as the most appropriate punishment; because this forces them to subsidise the care of the children who are still in care that they are refusing to take into their home. We have to do this because I see this motion as a way to force the people to take a vested interest in each other to solve Britain's broken society. If you have been in a relationship for 25 years you have successfully proved that marriage to be a stable one. You have had time to gain a strong career. You have time to have your own children and let them grow up but will still be young enough to successfully care for the adopted child. My opponent may say that we already have these benefits provided through the tax system but I say this system is not good enough. It is on the grounds that this proposition will get secure our most vulnerable children a home and a family and it shows society that we are taking a vested interest in looking after these vulnerable children to the very best of our ability. To open the Government's case I bring you two points; the state's duty and the "class" system. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has been telling us that we have to work together to mend Britain's broken society. I whole heartedly agree with this but at the moment we are not doing enough. Britain is a democracy and we must remember that. The government can only fulfil this role when it accepts responsibility for the care of the weakest in our country. The weakest are the children that have been left with out a home and with out a family to care for them. The Government has accepted that it must help them that is why they are removed from dangerous households and that is why the adoption system is in place. That may have been enough thirty years ago but not anymore. I see the biggest problem in society at the moment is that we have been put under a false sense of security. We just think, well the social work is there it must be ok for all the children who are suffering, we don't need to think about them because someone else will. This is fundamentally wrong. We are one society and if we are to move forward as a society everyone has to have a vested interest in the others in that society. The Government has the legitimacy and the incentive to make this happen. At the moment this is simply done by taxes. This approach is not working. The only way to make sure the people have a vested interest in each other is to make the incentive something real and something that everyone can relate to. I think this best takes the shape in the form of a child. When the Government forces couples to adopt we destroy this image that, someone else can do it. Instead we have the view that, I should be doing it. The suffering of the children and the problems in our society become real and tangible not simply statistics and Government warnings. We know the problems exist and we are actively engaging with them to improve our society as a whole. This is the Governments duty. This brings me to my second point. In Britain we are again beginning to see class separations in our society. I see this as one of the main causes of the "broken society" Mr Cameron keeps telling us we have. By proposing this motion we solve this problem. What we have at the moment is a lower class problem of poverty which the upper classes can chose to help out in if their feeling generous that day while the rest of us just live out our lives ignoring the problems around us. When people of every background and every "class" (above the poverty line) is forced to adopt they are forced to pull their heads out of the sand. No longer is poverty just a third class problem, it is everyones problem. No longer is a lack of education a third class problem, it is everyones problem. When every "class" is actively engaging in the problem of the others boundaries break down. We get told throughout our childhoods that a problem shared, is a problem halved. With this motion we can put that into practice to benefit those who are most vulnerable in our society and reintegrate this "broken society" we have created. So, for the reasons that it is the state's duty to intervene and because it breaks down this dangerous class system we have fallen back into, this motion must be proposed.