I think that the natural parents ought to take responsibility for their actions and put the child first. In some cases, this may mean that adoption is actually the best thing for the child.

But I will say this. I think that ideally, a child should have a mother and a father. This is how it is meant to work. It doesn't matter how much a lesbian woman wants a child, she can never properly substitute a father. Admittedly I came from a single-parent family myself and turned out reasonably OK, but the fact is that I would have given anything to have a mum and a dad at home who loved each other. Also, I believe that not having a proper male role model had a seriously detrimental effect on my little brother. He used to smash things up in fits of anger and threaten me. I honestly think that having a dad around would have would have stopped it.