Page 3073 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2012
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The federal parliament’s community affairs references committee into commonwealth contribution to former forced adoption policies and practices makes for harrowing reading. Between the 1950s and 1970s, about 150,000 unwed mothers had their babies taken away from them against their will, in many cases in the most distressing and inhumane manner. Case after case there are reports that would break anyone’s heart. There are the stories of those sent to expectant mothers’ homes, away from support or family, where their possessions and money were removed, where contact with friends and family was cut off and where they worked without pay until they gave birth.
A lack of care, a lack of consideration and a lack of compassion were marked by almost all the submissions in the report. Some are typified by adoptions notable for their lack of consent, lack of informed consent, consent under duress or consent revoked. Some are simply coercion, plain and simple. Some describe treatment that frankly passes the borders of the barbaric.
In the most distressing, there are reports of mothers being tied to a bed whilst delivering their babies. Others had a pillow or sheet placed over their heads, preventing them from seeing their babies at birth. Some mothers did not even know that their babies were intended for adoption and found out only after the children had been removed. Others were drugged, physically restrained or shut out of nurseries. All are stories of lives torn apart by a system that has caused a cruelty of separation that is hard to comprehend. This is summed up in the report by the quote:
The really major disaster of history is the separation of a mother and an infant at birth. This experience of abandonment is the most devastating event of life.
I could not agree more. The hurt caused to both parent and child can scarce be imagined. It most certainly cannot be allowed to pass unremarked and uncondemned. And condemned these actions should rightly be, for these are not actions which have only just become anachronistic—that is, they are only seen as wrong through the eyes of those who enjoy the wealth and choices of the 21st century. These were actions which were morally and ethically wrong at the time they occurred, and which the Senate report concludes were illegal at the time they occurred. As the report notes:
The committee does not dispute the societal values and professional practice were different during the period in question. However, justifying past actions in terms of values or prevailing practice can be seen as avoiding taking responsibility for the policy choices made by institutions’ leaders.
Let me repeat: these actions were wrong in law when considered against the law of the time. When addressing this vexed but undeniably essential element, the report states:
… certainly after new laws were enacted in the mid-1960s, actions of these types would in some cases have been illegal. Other experiences that reflected unethical practices included failure to provide information and failure to take a professional approach to a woman’s care. It is time for governments and institutions involved to accept that such actions were wrong, not merely by today’s values but by the values and laws of the time. Formal apologies must acknowledge this and must not equivocate.
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