In this Voice of the Child (VOTC) podcast, adoption activist Paul Brian Tovey talks about star footballer Dele Alli’s adoption claims, his complaint to the BBC for their reporting of the story, and his conversation on X with Radio 5 journalist and adoptee Nicky Campbell, whose programme about Dele and adoption caused a stir among adult adoptees on social media.
Paul also talks about “reunion p*rn”, why many adoptees dislike the rescue narrative found in adoption, and his own campaign helping adoptees abused in childhood to heal.
Speaking to VOTC, Paul said, “My worry about the media is that they’re mirroring the self repression that has been wished upon some adoptees. The adoptees that want to speak out who’ve had wonderful lives they’re just going to come out with it, but the ones that have a lot of pain – pain is very difficult to talk about.”
“We need to get our heads together in some ways that satisfy each other, so that we can get to some more of the information about the negative sides of adoption. Everyone else in life has the human right to walk away from a relationship that hasn’t been very good, and adoptees don’t. There’s something wrong there.”
You can listen to the podcast here.
Researching Reform 
With all due respect to Paul I think the podcast is an overlong discussion comparing good adoptive parents with bad ones and vaguely sugesting that guardianship might be a better option ..;
What was really needed was an examination of the forced adoption racket where adoption and fostering agencies make billions of £s profits quite openly out of children removed from parents who fight mostly losing battles in court trying to keep them !
I think adoption can be a wonderful thing providing it is VOLUNTARY and OPEN (birth parents should know where there children are going)
What is really wicked however is FORCED ADOPTION .Cruel and abusive parents rarely fight through the courts trying to keep their children .Most avoid courts like the plague !
Desperate parents who go through lengthy and painful court hearings begging for their children to be returned surely prove their love and most deserve to be given a chance under a supervision order at least.The majority of forced adoptions occur not because children have been harmed but because social workers persuade judges that one day in the future parents might harm them !
Risk of emotional harm is a favourite !
A police officer can arrest you if you commit a crime but cannot do so because you might commit a crime next year !
That logic completely escape’s the family courts and also apparently Nicky Campbell who should surely in the interests of fairness and truth interview the birth parents of adoptees including those of Deli Ali who was apparently never adopted at all !
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