FORCED ADOPTION: WE’RE SORRY
UPDATE – 20/9/12.
The New South Wales Government has followed the South Australian and West Australian governments in apologising to those whose lives were ruined by the forced adoption policy.
Premier Barry O’Farrell issued the “long overdue” apology to a packed Parliament, saying: ”We apologise to the mothers who were not asked or listened to. We apologise for making you feel ashamed and unfit to care for your babies.
“We say sorry for treating you cruelly and insensitively when what you needed and deserved most was care and support.”
He apologised to the children who had been forcibly adopted and “who grew up never knowing the truth of your birth or how much you were wanted or loved by your mothers”
Here’s the Hoopla’s story from February, 2012 on forced adoption:
“(A nurse) started strapping up my right wrist. I was puzzled, I didn’t know what she was doing, and then she secured me to the side of the bed… I became unconscious. And I don’t know how long I was unconscious for, but when I eventually came to, my son was gone.”
* In latest news: A NATIONAL apology and financial reparation is owed to parents and children who were victims of forced adoption policies, a Senate committee has found.
The community affairs committee says the practice was wrong not just by today’s standards but by the laws of the time.
The committee has called for governments and institutions involved in forced adoption from the 1940s to the 70s to set up grievance processes and provide redress where wrongdoing is established.
And it says the states should provide financial reparation schemes for the victims.
Did you watch the Four Corners program Give or Taken? on forced adoption this week?
It was deeply affecting and, at times, harrowing to watch. No doubt many tears of sympathy were shed across the nation for the women bullied and coerced into giving up their babies.
The program was also a testament to the endurance of mother love – perhaps the most powerful of all human emotions.
Reporter Geoff Thompson talked to some of the women who lost their children. They told the truth about the way they were treated in the hours after they gave birth. Heartbreaking.
Until the 1970s, having a child out of wedlock was seen as a social disgrace and young women who fell pregnant were either sent away or actively encouraged to give up their babies for adoption. A ‘clean break’ it was called. Women were given sedatives and drugs to dry up their milk.
Something we forget when we talk about the ‘good old days’.
Authorities argued this was done with good intentions, but now a Senate Committee has heard evidence that tells a very different story. It will release its report tomorrow.
Many young, single mothers were never given the option of keeping their child.
Unmarried mothers automatically had their hospital records marked ready for adoption – even before giving birth.
There is evidence that some were sedated. Others were denied access to their babies as they were making crucial decisions about their future. As a result, these women have suffered terrible emotional distress throughout their lives.
One person who examined a variety of evidence said:
“I have no doubt that some illegal activity occurred, I have no doubt that women were subject to what nowadays… we would call abuse; that forged consents occurred.”
Over the past decade individual hospitals and the West Australian Government have offered an official apology to the women who lost their children.
“Given or Taken?” Reported by Geoff Thompson and presented by Kerry O’Brien will be replayed on Tuesday, February 28 at 11.35 pm on ABC 1 and can also be seen in ABC News 24 on Saturdays at 8pm, on iview or at abc.net.au/4corners.
25 Responses to this article
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TheSheEO February 28, 2012
I watched this program last night and had a very restless sleep afterwards. It was very disturbing and it is amazing that so little has been said of this past practice. Me 3 year old son slept in my bed last night, when he came in for a cuddle I happily let him jump right in. That was some comfort for the distress the program left me feeling. For the women who’ve linged for the same simple pleasure for decades long gone, my heartfelt love, compassion and empathy goes to you. To the children and adopting parent – love and compassion also. I hope some healing can be nurtured in the future for all involved.
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sue elliott February 28, 2012
Tears well up as I consider this happening to me. I can only imagine the heartache and distress. A national apology would be expensive interms of price and time and would to me at least be completely and utterly meaningless. Just another example of some pollie in the limelight as an election stunt.
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Michelle February 28, 2012
I believe we do need to formally acknowledge that what happened to these women was abuse. Some of the practices of the times were horrific and if they happened today someone would be going to jail for it. An apology would certainly not be meaningless to my mother and I fail to see why it would be expensive. I think it is the least she and all the other women are owed.
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Linda February 28, 2012
could be something for us all to think about next time we “look” at some of the younger mums out and about in shopping centres and other public places.
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Michelle February 28, 2012
My mother became pregnant at 15. She wasn’t allowed to leave the family home until she went into labour. Then she was taken, not to a hospital – she describes it as an “old folks home” – where she was left to labour on her own on a bed in a room with newspaper on the floor. At the exact time she actually pushed her baby out she was sedated (chloroformed?) and the baby taken away. She never saw him, but agonisingly heard him crying for two days in the facility. She was never given the option of keeping him and the only reason she knows her baby was a son is because she begged a compassionate elderly nurse to tell her. When she came home she was told to forget about it. Unbelievable treatment and in my opinion cruel and abusive. Despite our best efforts, we have failed to find him. I hope sometime my Mum gets the opportunity to finally meet him. An apology is the least she is owed.
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MrsP2011 February 28, 2012
This is a subject which is very close to my heart. In 1969 I gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl. I was 23 years old and had already given birth to my son in 1966. I was “an unmarried mother”. Shock. Horror. Although my parents loved my son, for me to be pregnant with yet a second child with no support, was not only a shock to them, but for my Mum in particular, it was a disaster. Right from the start, my parents, mostly my mother, insisted that I give the baby up for adoption. This was the plan in no uncertain terms from my mother. When I gave birth my daughter was taken straight away and I did not even see her. It also didn’t take long for social services to visit me at my hospital bed the next day, adoption papers in hand for me to sign. It was very distressing for me. Unless you have been through it, when it comes to the crunch, giving up your baby is almost an unthinkable position to be in. What happened next can only be described as a miracle. The social worker really was lovely and she could see that I was struggling with the decision so she said I’ll just leave the papers with you and come back tomorrow to pick them up. She never came back, I didn’t sign the papers and went home a couple of days later without my baby girl. I told Mum and Dad that I hadn’t signed the papers and that it was upsetting me and I wanted my baby. Mum was really angry and upset with me putting forward all the arguments about how was I going to look after another baby when I already had one. Bearing in mind that then there was no assistance from the government for single mothers. My Dad was visibly upset for me too. I wasn’t able to sleep so a few days later, I phoned my sister about it and her immediate reaction was “Get Dad to drive you up here and I will go with you to the hospital and we will get the baby.” So next morning, very early and much to Mum’s distress, Dad willingly drove me to my sister’s house at Warwick Farm. Then she and I walked to the hospital at Liverpool. We went straight to the maternity ward and I told the nurse I had come to pick up my baby. We explained that the papers hadn’t been signed so she immediately got the Matron who indignantly told us that I couldn’t have the baby as it had already been given to the adoption agency. Liar! My sister was furious and told her in no uncertain terms that as the papers hadn’t been signed she had better get the baby quick smart. After a while we were confronted by 2 detectives from Liverpool Police Station – can you believe that? They were pretty aggressive at first – as they are – but when they saw how determined we were that we were not leaving the hospital without the baby and that, as my sister pointed out, there was no legal reason for them to hold the baby, their words to the Matron were “you had better give her her baby”. Fortunately, the baby was still at the hospital, and yes, we had been lied to. We had to wait for about half an hour but then I had my baby girl in my arms and we went back to my sister’s house. Later that day, Dad picked me up and took me back home. At first Mum wouldn’t even look at the baby, nor would she speak to me. It took her almost 2 weeks to come around. She had to, because I am one of those mothers that for some reason, becomes so emotionally overcome at baby bath time that I am next to useless and cry uncontrollably. With each baby, I have had to have Mum with me for the first few weeks at bath time. The other thing was that I had asked Mum to choose a name for my son which was my gift to her, so my baby girl didn’t have a name either for 2 weeks. In the end, for me, it turned out well and I am forever grateful, and often think about that wonderful social worker. She knew what she was doing. I just watched that 4 Corners program. I identify with everything those women said. There most certainly was a process of coercion in place that most young women could not have dealt with. Given most were teenagers who, apart from being just that – young and naive – were already overwhelmed with all the emotions that go with pregnancy, they were also being told that being pregnant was shameful. I often think about the daughter of one of our neighbours who was a couple of years older than me. One day, this was a couple of years before I became pregnant with my first child, Mum said to me that she (the daughter) had been sent to Parramatta Girls’ Home. I asked why because she was a lovely girl, not prone to getting into mischief and at that time PGH was commonly known as “a home for naughty girls”. Mum said it was because she was pregnant. That’s another institution that should be investigated. I hope everything has turned out ok for her. I have never hidden the fact from anyone, that I was for many years, an unmarried mother of 2 children. I am not ashamed of that either, and neither should any of those women carry that shame for any moment longer. I am a strong person, I know that (with the exception of baby bath time). My daughter often tells me that too, because I told her from a very early age how I almost lost her. I am truly thankful that I am strong, as I am equally thankful to my sister and my parents, otherwise it might be a very different story I am telling here. Those women deserve much more than platitudes such as “we are sorry” or “we regret”.
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Naresh July 30, 2012
Wonderful story.
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Naresh July 30, 2012
Painful stories.
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Pauline February 28, 2012
MrsP2011, I am so glad that you were so strong. It is unbelievable that the hospital called the police. I believe that you were one of the lucky ones. When told that the baby had gone to the adoption agency, I can imagine other young girls just giving up especially without parental support.
I was a student nurse in the early 70s and I know how frightened I was of the Matron.
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Annette February 28, 2012
As an adopted person I was very moved by this show. It is just unfathomable the power that ‘respectability’ played and continues to play. How could the mothers and fathers of young pregnant girls care more about what others would think or say than for their own child and grandchild?? So glad to see this side of the adoption story being told, but disgusted that it happened. I was named Sara at birth and am so proud of that name the older I get.
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An Adopted Person February 28, 2012
I am an adopted person. I was given up by a woman who made a decision to give me up: not because she wanted to, but because she had no choice. No family support (she had been told she would be disowned if she kept the baby; she was 16 at that time), no government support and no support from a partner. I have had the good fortune of meeting my biological mother, who has told me the harrowing tale of not being allowed to see her baby, told to go home and forget and have other babies when it was more suitable. She told me the story of a young midwife who took pity on her and snuck the baby (me) into her room to hold for 10 minutes. I have not been raised poorly, indeed I have been raised better than what a 16 year old homeless girl could have done, but it doesn’t change the indescribable feelings of not having a place in this world. I cannot begin to describe the grief I feel for the woman who gave birth to me for being forced into such a position by a society that thought it knew better. And as a nurse myself I cannot even begin to fathom how any healthcare worker could have believed for a moment what they were doing was in anyone’s best interests.
It is time the government showed the respect for these women they deserved all along and apologised. I would like to hope it would do something to ease the grief and guilt that eats up so many women who were powerless in their circumstances.
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Rabaul PNG March 19, 2012
I was 17 and my son was taken by the local anglican priest. I was forced to sign papers but not allowed to read them. He tightly held my wrist and guided it to make me sign. No other adult was with me. My son is Eurasian. As he was born in Rabaul, New Guinea prior to independence it has been impossible to trace him. I know the adoption did not go through government channels, therefore he was taken for a private adoption. I am not bitter about the couple who adopted him, they have probably done a better job of raising him then I could have, I only want the pain of having my heart torn apart in 1966 to end. I am now 62 and it never gets easier. Part of me is missing and I pray he is a happy, well adjusted man who can forgive the mother who brought him into the world, but was too young to understand she had rights that were abused by a man who used his power to steal my baby.
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Marilyn Murphy June 16, 2012
I had my first born daughter taken in 1970 at a catholic hospital in Western Australia.
Now as a middle aged woman I see it all so clearly.
It was corrupt.
I will never forget that disgusting solicitor that came into the
Hospital ( unmarried mothers section) and although he could see such hearbreak and anguish all around he took those signatures, so drugged up mothers were totally disempowered
Their parents shamed by cruel creeds and doctrines.
I consider forced closed adoption was physical, mental and
Spiritual RAPE.
For me, when I “woke up” to what had really happened, I
Fought the draconian system.
My daughter and I were reunited 24yrs ago now, when, she
Was 18 .
We have had an ongoing relationship since.
I know of many women, who never recovered from this abuse sadly
Many have died prematurely.
The barbarity of it all still haunts me.
I look forward to a Federal Apology, for me it acknowledges
The abuse of power, over young vulnerable women and their
Babes. -
June Mullen July 16, 2012
I was one of those young girls coerced into giving up my baby. when you are 15 and everyone in authority is telling you that you cant do this, you have no choice but to believe it. and I also can tell my birth experience as something that many more mature, prepared people would not be able to cope with. when I approached a staff member to say I thought I was going to have my baby, and I wasnt sure, I was placed in a room with a radio alarm clock and told to bring to there attention if I needed them. 16 year old, frightened, in labour and no-one to hold my hand. Shame, shame, shame.
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sue bell September 24, 2012
I was forced into adoption. My baby was premature and was fostered for the first six months by Billy Sneddon and wife. I would visit him. In the end the psychological pressure put on me forced me into signing the papers. I know it was better for my boy.
At the time The Family (a religious cult very active in Victoria), were adopting babies from friendly hospital social workers. I was always scared that they had him as he was blue eyed and had blonde hair, the cults preferred colouring.
For years every time I heard of a boy dying who was the same age as my son I would be emotionally destroyed by the thought that it was him.
I was always determined to find him, I did not change my name on marriage to help him find me, I kept in touch over the years with the hospital adoption workers, they always knew where I was living. Just before his 18th., birthday his adoptive parents started to look for me as he was a very unsettled teenager.
Over the years we have formed a very close friendship and my children (now adults) love him. We met in October, in December my 4 year old daughter kept begging me for an older brother, I explained birth order to her and said she must be content with her baby brother. My son arrived at our house for Christmas and my daughter has always thought of him as her own Christmas present.
Earlier this year the Royal Women’s Hospital in Victoria made a public apology to relinquishing mothers. I cried for days and he and I had long email sessions about it. Some people think an apology is just tokenistic whether to relinquishing mothers or to Aboriginals, it is not, an apology is a wonderful start to healing as the terrible hurt has been acknowledged.
I have had a baby die. It is far easier to come to terms with a death where you know your baby has died and you are involved with the funeral and you say your goodbyes. An adoption leaves your emotions raw forever as you cannot have final grieving only on going stress and fear.
By the way his adoptive parents were wonderful, his mother gave me a photo album of his childhood when I first met him. I was proud to be able to support him emotionally when his mother died, he enjoyed having two families. -
Joni September 29, 2012
You are all incredibly brave women. Sue and Marilyn, I am glad you had a happy ending to your stories. June and Rabaul PNG, I hope you find closure to what happened to you and your babies.
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Wendy October 8, 2012
My sister was coerced by my parents to give up her baby many years ago. I never knew about it until I was much older. My sister was treated differently all her life within the older members of my family. My sister married a few years after relinquishing her daughter and went on to have four boys.It was many years before the child was even mentioned in our family and this was done in whispers. My sister was contacted by her daughter a few years ago , but sadly this only made the situation worse, the daughter made promises of getting to know her Mother and her family, but it never happened , so my sister had to grieve all over again.She found life a struggle at times and found solace in alcohol.(sober now)She never ever forgot her daughter and the shame of being pregnant unmarried. The way in which this generation of forced adoptions behaved was appalling, my mother passed away three years ago, and to my disbelief my Mothers sisters and families still treated my sister with disdain !!
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Joni October 18, 2012
That is just tragic. I hope there is a happy ending for your poor sister, Wendy.
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MemKate October 24, 2012
So many sad stories, so much anguish – all for “respectability”. I did not have to go through this sort of pain but I feel for the mothers who did. Now the Family Court is doing the same thing, taking children away from a good parent (or parents) on flimsy or no evidence, from Dept. of Childrens Services staff who have little or no experience. Siblings are being split up and sent to “carers” where often they are exploited or abused. There is a whole new generation of ‘stolen children’ happening now.
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lynda January 15, 2013
I had all 12 of my children taken from me and today it breaks my heart stil mine was threw my mother inlaw and husband working with the welfare knowing i had no family of my own to help me my husband since died and my mother inlaw…my children where brain washed against me…ive since had grand children and great grandchildren that i havent seen….I rescued 2 of my sons’s threw this horrible ordeal my young son died of suicide so that left me with one son that addors me..he works away fly in and fly out job…welfare took a daughter of me in the 70′s while i was going threw a nervous break down forced me to sighn a papper she was eight monthes old never seen her again I named her kelly they changed her name…I have a long story and just telling this hurts so much I get so sick just thinking im always thinking of my children but i give up as they did by the brain washing….thanks
