( UPDATED at the end of post!!
WE have finally been given recognition through the senate enquiry!!!!!)
Many many lives have been destroyed, and many have succumbed to suicide, and despair.
As an adopted person who was illegally stolen off my mother, as a tiny baby, I fully support an inquiry and would like to see those, who,responsible for such anti human actions within this conspiracy be accountable for the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Individuals and Families..
From here we read
Brian Hoolahan could do nothing but watch the joy of childbirth turn to horror for hundreds of young women.
During his days as a medical student at the Crown Street Women's Hospital in Sydney, the Nowra obstetrician repeatedly saw babies taken from their unwed teenage mothers moments after birth.
"I remember the girls calling out 'I just want to touch my baby, please let me see my baby' and they were crying and howling and it was the most horrific thing I've ever seen in my life,"
A Senate inquiry into how tens of thousands of young mothers were forced to give up their children for adoption between the 1940s and 1970s will hand down its findings tomorrow.
In the 1971-72 financial year, about 10,000 children were adopted in Australia, compared with 384 last financial year.
The inquiry heard harrowing claims that babies were taken against their mothers' will and that women were pressured, deceived or threatened in order to secure signatures on adoption consent forms.
"If a teenage girl got pregnant in those days, as soon as she showed she was whisked out of her family environment, her home town and put in a home in a hospital like the one I spent time at in Sydney," Dr Hoolahan said.
"They'd be there for maybe 20 weeks of their pregnancy, then have their babies and they went off home as though they'd been away on a trip or holiday and nobody ever knew they were pregnant.
"That's how it worked."(end snip)
and from here:
The woman, who wishes to be known only as "Jan", was a trainee social worker at Sydney's Royal Hospital For Women when it was run by the Benevolent Society in 1972.
She has told ABC1's Four Corners she has always felt awful about her part in pressuring young unmarried women 40 years ago.
"Basically my job was to shut them up, stop them crying, get them to realise that giving up their baby was the best thing that they could do and get on with it," she said.
Jan says it was made clear to her by her superiors that adoption was the only message to be delivered to unmarried mothers.
"I was one of the people who was involved with telling the girls that if they kept their baby they were being selfish. They were being selfish to the baby and selfish to the adopting parents who really wanted to have a child," she said.
Precise figures are not known, but it has been estimated that up one quarter of a million women gave their children up for adoption in Australia between the 1920s and 1980s.
Many of those women now claim they were given no choice but to surrender their babies for adoption in the face of family and social pressure.
Some claim they were drugged and restrained before giving adoption consents.
A Senate inquiry is due to report on Wednesday after 12 months of gathering evidence from hundreds of relinquishing mothers across Australia.
Some mothers claim the signatures on their adoption consents were forged while others allege that they were wrongly told their babies were dead, only to be contacted by grown children years later.
(end snip)
and despairingly...NO APOLOGY from any of those involved in this racket will ever ease the pain that is for life..from here
and despairingly...NO APOLOGY from any of those involved in this racket will ever ease the pain that is for life..from here
Women whose babies were taken from them moments after birth through forced adoptions do not believe a formal apology from the federal government will put back the pieces of their lives.
Today the Senate Community Affairs Committee will present the findings of its 18-month inquiry into forced adoptions, in which vulnerable, young unmarried Australian women were coerced into giving up their babies, lied to and brutalised in the hours and days following giving birth.
For adoption campaigner Lily Arthur, whose newborn son was taken from her in 1967, reparations will need to include financial support for counselling and mental health issues suffered by women enduring decades of grief, shame and post-traumatic shock.
Ms Arthur, who is one of 130 women who travelled to Canberra to be present in the Senate for the report to be tabled this afternoon, said an apology would ring hollow.‘‘When a woman has suffered decades of mental anguish, and had her basic common law and human rights abused, an apology doesn’t change anything.’’
Many women who suffered a forced adoption had gone on to lead lives plagued by mental health issues, drug or alcohol abuse and higher suicide rates.
Ms Arthur, who is the coordinator of Origins : Supporting People Separated through Adoption, said survivors of forced adoption required reparation such as access to counselling, increased Centrelink support and better access to records.(end snip)
What a terrible form of abuse.
What legacy did that leave?
What effect did that have on the baby that was "taken" or "relinquished"...forcibly abandoned.
They knew back in the 1940's what happens to people when they are abandoned or separated from their mothers as babies..THEY KNEW.
These babies were also placed within abusive and violent homes, with no checks being made into the mental stability of the "adopting Parents" whose motivation to adopt was purely selfish.
What a sick social experiment..creating whole multi generations of dysfunctional and damaged human beings, who have a heightened risk of suicide and other deep depressive ONGOING mental health problems.
This post is dedicated to Dian Wellfare (RIP) who was an amazing campaigner for Adoption Rights of Birth Mothers and their stolen Children.
Please also see THE PRIMAL WOUND: by Nancy Verrier
Much Love and Healing to those that have been affected by this issue, and by any other trauma, abuse or abandonment.
Peace.
A13
UPDATE:
WE GET OUR APOLOGY!!! BUT IT'S NOT ENOUGH...SO WE HAVE MORE WORK TO DO!!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/say-sorry-cheers-and-tears-as-inquiry-ends-on-forced-adoption-20120229-1u2sr.html
Australian governments must formally apologise to mothers and children who were victims of past forced adoption practices, a parliamentary inquiry has recommended.
Between the 1950s and 1970s, about 150,000 Australian unwed mothers had their babies taken against their will by churches and adoption agencies.
The report by a Senate inquiry investigating the Commonwealth government's involvement in past forced adoption practices was tabled in the upper house today with 20 recommendations.
The committee recommended a formal Commonwealth government apology, as well as similar statements from state and territory governments and non-government institutions involved."(end snip)
Well done and Kudos to all who persevered through this trauma..
THE SENATE REPORT CAN BE FOUND HERE
A13








