Extending the right to adopt to "single parents", as well as to "unmarried heterosexual couples" is in fact "an underhand way to enable gay couples to adopt too". This is the opinion of the Italian association "Amici dei bambini" (Ai.Bi.), which has been working for years on an international scale, about the "Joint declaration on international adoption", which is being reviewed by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. "Whether it is the child’s interests or the adults’ interests which are really protected remains to be seen", explains the association to SIR, highlighting that, first and foremost, "it is the child’s identity that must be protected, especially for those children who have been abandoned and who need to be protected even more". "How can a child’s identity be appropriately developed wonders Ai.Bi if the child cannot rely on a male and a female parental figure that is essential for his or her development, as all scientific studies have now confirmed?" With a same-sex adult couple, recalls the Associations, "the child would have problems finding his or her own identity, especially because the child has to reckon with the low self-confidence that is typical of any abandoned child, but which in fact everyone must reckon with all their life".
