The Government is seeking to speed up the adoption process for the growing number of children being taken into care in the UK. Social workers responsible for the difficult job of matching children with adoptive parents are often criticised for focusing too much on questions of ethnicity or lifestyle. So how far should religion play a factor in the process which links children and parents? Ernie Rea discusses the issue with Raffia Arshad, a family lawyer, Ruby Clay, an author who has adopted three children with her lesbian partner, and Fiona Bowie a social anthropologist and also an adoptive mother.
