"We are guilty of many errors and many faults but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life, Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer. "Tomorrow".

His name is "Today",

-quoted from Gabriela Mistral

2. "... Whether a civilized State committed to the Rule of law, governed by a written constitution and signatory to International Conventions on the Rights of a Child, could deny to a Section of its own citizens the right to adopt a child and to give that child, a home, a name and nationality?"

This is the question posed by Justice Rebello of the Bombay High Court in Manuel Theodore Dsouza and Another (see II (2000) DMC 292).

3. For the antagonists opposing adoption on the basis of religion, he gave a Sages advice:

"The Rule of law must reach them. Protests, from whatever Sections should not stop the pursuit of justice to those in need of it. The right of a child cannot be confused with the personal law of any Section of our pluralistic society. Adoption is not to be treated as an act by a State t