This is one of those days when a significant portion of the adoption news is focusing on negatives, on what can go wrong in adoption, and from so many angles.

Starting in the UK, this story that has me questioning the concept of total government control of adoptions being a good idea or a way forward in reform.

Seems a couple in England took their daughter to a hospital for treatment of an abdominal ailment and doctors concluded that she had been sexually assaulted. This resulted in the child, and then her newborn sister, being removed from the home. The girls were placed in a potentially adoptive family who now want to adopt.

A year later, the parents have been cleared of the abuse charges and want their children returned to them. They are being told that this won't happen, and that the adoption will go through.

Of course, this is all from a news report and the complete story is bound to be much more complicated, but it does appear to be one more example of how government agencies aren't the be all and end all of fair adoption practices.

For a look at the other side of this same coin, this from Ireland follows a baby boy who was abducted from his foster family by his alcoholic and abusive parents ... their other six children are in care because of neglect and abuse ... has now been returned to the custody of those very same parents.

This case has a lot to do with the laws governing Northern Ireland and those of the Republic in the south, but that's not going to make much difference if this baby ends up dead.

And from the US this on the financial costs of adoption and how birth mothers' react to the often huge amounts of money that changes hands.

Coley wrote about this just the other day, and her take echos that of the birth mother cited in the article in worrying over implications that babies are being sold.

People in Oklahoma are looking at ways to keep adoption costs down ... from making charges public record to auditing adoption cases before court approval ... and increasing transparency. Good luck to them.

Once again, however, my faith in state overseeing isn't strong. It seems to me that if the problem of too much money involved stems even partly from lawyers setting up the systems and making the rules, the fact that many elected officials ... law makers, if you will ... are also lawyers makes it appear less than likely that there will be LESS money involved with them in charge.

All lawyers are free to argue strenuously with my postulations, and I'll be very happy to hear other views. Please.