This week the Church apologised for the way it handled adoptions 50 years ago. But how much was it to blame, and how much was the policy dictated by the mores of the times?

So, another day, another call for an inquiry. As the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) limps along its controversy-strewn path, lawyers from two major law firms have written to the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, demanding a public inquiry into historic adoption practices. This now-favoured resort of the wronged to seek justice was occasioned by an ITV documentary on Wed-nesday, which detailed how some young, unmarried women were coerced into giving up their babies for adoption in the 1960s and 1970s. The programme has also given impetus to another of today’s means of redress, the government apology.

Even before the programme was aired, an apology from Cardinal Vincent Nichols and a statement of “regret” from Lambeth Palace accompanied widespread media coverage on radio and in the newspapers. From The Guardian to The Mirror the alleged shortcomings of the adoption agencies run by the Catholic Church was the main focus of an issue which has surfaced in newspapers spasmodically over the past 10 years.

However, adoption cannot be released from its historical moorings. It remains a barometer of social attitudes, often reflected in legislation and professional practice, toward unmarried pregnancy, infertility, marriage, child-bearing, sexual relationships and inheritance. It has a chequered history of which the latest controversy is but the latest manifestation.