I wonder whether, as a society, we've learnt anything from the experiences of forced adoption in the 50s and 60s. In those days it was the 'stain of illegitimacy' that was seen as an important child protection issue - an unmarried mother was automatically a bad woman who deserved to be punished for transgressing social norms. Children 'deserved' to be brought up by a respectable married couple.
There are endless testimonies about the heartbreak and cruelty that system inflicted on parents and to children. It took a social revolution to overthrow it.
Now we seem to be demonising different categories of women - those who are victims of domestic violence, or have suffered mental illness at some point, or who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Or who have lost several child to cot death, as in the Clark/Patel/Cannings etc. etc. cases. Are we absolutely sure we aren't just making the same false judgements, just finding a new group of whom we can all disapprove?
I'm not doubting that child abuse exists, btw, just wondering whether we are falling into the same trap of assuming people in a certain category are automatically 'bad mothers'. Certainly some of the removals based on 'ooh, she might harm her newborn baby at some point even though she's never actually hurt a child' seem to reflect such false thinking.