In Parliament on 9 May 2022, the Second Reading of the Adoption of Children Bill took place. This bill will replace the Adoption of Children Act 1939 (ACA).
During the debate, the Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli made clear that
the government does not encourage planned and deliberate single parenthood as a lifestyle choice. Singapore’s public policy continues to be one which encourages parenthood within marriage.
Aside from single parents, the Minister said that,
We also do not support the formation of same-sex family units through institutions and processes like adoption.
“These public policies”, he concluded, “will continue to guide suitability assessments.”
For avoidance of doubt, the Minister also made it clear that same-sex couples who are legally married overseas cannot adopt in Singapore.
“This means that only a man and a woman married to each other can apply together. This is because Singapore’s marriage law only allows a man and woman to marry each other.”
Joyce Chan, a financial consultant, opined that the proposed laws are “backwards” and a “low blow”. She said that many people who wished to adopt are financially, emotionally, and mentally prepared and able to raise kids.
The Government’s stance on the formation of same-sex family units, and planned single parenthood, isn’t particularly novel.
In a 1995 article by Geraldine Heng and Janadas Devan, it is written that during the debates surrounding the Graduate Mothers Scheme, which sought to encourage graduate women to have more babies and sterilise non-graduate women, some women
suggested, with irony, that if increased numbers of superior children were exclusively the issue, then women ought to be encouraged, nay urged to have children outside the institution of marriage, with all stigmatization of single mothers and illegitimate offspring removed. Many women, they challenged, did not wish to marry, but wished nonetheless to have children; should not the government in their urgent desire recommend moves toward women-headed families? Recognizing the threat to patriarchal authority vested in the traditional Asian family—after which its own hierarchies and values were after all patterned—the government conspicuously failed to generate enthusiasm for this alternative.
As far as Singapore’s public policy is concerned, the heterosexual nuclear family shall be encouraged while planned and deliberate single families or same-sex families will not be encouraged.
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