1950s - 1970s about 150,000 Australian unwed mothers had their babies taken against their will by churches and adoption agencies.

Australian parliament

Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices

29 February 2012

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wealth of Australia 2012
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Catholic Health Australia (CHA) has endorsed the call for a national apology for past adoption policies, including forced adoption that affected up to 150,000 children and mothers.

The Sen

ate Inquiry report into past adoption policies and practices has proposed the national apology following its investigations which started on November 15 2010 and, because of the huge volume of submissions, extended its deadline to February 2012.

Catholic Health Australia (CHA) was one of more than 400 organisations and individuals that made a submission to the inquiry.

CHA last year issued its own apology to those, "who carry broken hearts as a result of the role that some Catholic organisations played in this widespread, common public policy practice of years past.”

The health group, which represents 75 hospitals and 550 residential and community aged care services operated by the Catholic Church, wants all state and territory governments in Australia acknowledge that ongoing pain has been caused for many as a result of past adoption policies, and a national government apology as part of the healing process for many affected people.

CHA chief executive officer Martin Laverty said he is pleased that many of the recommendations his organisation made to the Inquiry have been embraced b

ecause, "we think they are concrete steps that can help those affected by past adoption practices move towards healing."

Mr Laverty proposed to the community and disability service ministers of all states and territories a four-step plan to help progress the healing process for those affected by past adoption policies.

These are, a new nationally co-ordinated programme to facilitate improved access to medical, birth and social work records; a national fund supporting access to tailored counselling for mothers, fathers, adopted children, their siblings and parents who have cared for adopted children; a national process to hear grievances of birth mothers about their birth experience or consent procedure, and; a national apology supported by all governments, recognising that the Western Australian Government has already taken this step.

Mr Laverty said, "A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry was held more than a decade ago. I've met birth mothers who gave evidence to that inquiry, and those years later they feel little has been done. The same mistake can't be made this time, and the report of the Senate Inquiry should lead to a national apology."

Lily Arthur, who co-ordinates support group Origins, says an apology , "is a way of doing a Pontius Pilate," allowing authorities and institutions to wash their hands of the problem.

Mrs Arthur, who works with organisations including the Aboriginal community’s Stolen Generations and the Forgotten Australians, who have already been given an apology, has seen, "first-hand," how little tangible difference it made to people's lives.

For an apology to have meaning, victims of forced adoption needed a small Centrelink allowance "so they can get some things in life to make them comfortable,” she said.

The Stolen Generations (also stolen children) refers to those children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments.

The first law the Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act 1869, gave the colony powers over Aboriginal and so called, half-caste persons, including the forcible removal of children from what were deemed ‘at risk' girls.

By 1950, similar policies and legislation had been adopted by other states and territories and authorities were promoting the fostering / adoption of Aboriginal children by white parents.

The inquiry into the period of the late 1950s to mid-1970s covers ‘forced’ adoption of babies of mostly young and unmarried mothers.

The number of adoptions from 1951 to 1975 was between 140,000 and 150,000.

Total adoptions from 1940 to now are well in excess of 210,000, and could be as high as 250,000.

Now there are new adoption laws and there were 412 adoptions in 2009 to 2010.

The common practice between the 1950s and 1970s was that young single pregnant women were sent away to relatives or group homes operated by religious organisations.

Social workers and religious sisters usually recommended adoption to single mothers whose files were marked BFA or baby for adoption.

Their babies were removed at birth and sometimes kept on a separate floor until adoptive parents took them home.

Mothers often returned home to their families after the birth and were expected to continue with education or work, with no mention of the pregnancy.

Fathers almost never played a role in giving consent for adoption, mothers were discouraged from formally identifying them, and they were often barred from access to the hospital, the mother or the baby.

New apology call
11 March 2012
By: Paul Dobbyn

LAST year'

s apology by Catholic Health Australia to single mothers, forced to adopt out their children over decades from the 1950s, still stands for all Catholic hospitals in the health care network, in the light of recent publicity on the issue.

It is expected no further apologies will be made.

CHA chief executive officer Martin Laverty in July issued an apology to those "who carry broken hearts as a result of the role that some Catholic organisations played in this widespread, common public policy practice of years past".

The apology was issued during a Senate inquiry into past adoption practices in government and non-government institutions over three decades.

The inquiry's report was tabled in the Senate on February 29 this year following an 18-month invest

igation. Among other things, it called for a national apology to unwed mothers affected by the adoption policies.

It found that between the 1950s and 1970s, about 150,000 Australian unwed mothers had their babies taken against their will by churches and adoption agencies.

Following the report's tabling, Mr Laverty said the CHA endorsed the inquiry's 20 key recommendations and called on state and ter-ritory government community services ministers to adopt the Senate's action plan when they meet on March 30.

He said "it was pleasing" that many of the recommendations his organisation made to the inquiry "had been embraced".

"We think they are concrete steps that can help those affected by past adoption practices move towards healing," Mr Laverty said.

CHA recommendations included improved access to medical, birth and social work records; counselling for those affected by past adoption practices; and a national p

rocess to enable birth mothers to make their grievances heard at an official level.

Queensland Senator Claire Moore helped initiate the inquiry after three women visited her Brisbane office five years ago.

The senator, in her speech given at the report's tabling, said "(the women) brought some pictures and a couple of books that they had written, and they brought their pain and their anger and their disgust, because no-one had believed what had happened to them".

"I personally could not believe that in my country, in places that I knew, to people with whom I had worked, the experiences that they told me about had happened," she said.

"In some ways, I was a bit fortunate because I live in Brisbane, and the first formal acknowledgement of the work that had happened and the horror that had occurred was made by the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, a hospital I knew well."

Meanwhile, the Royal Women's Hospital (RWH) in Melbourne has apologised to mothers who placed their children for adoption, after a report by Australian Catholic University's Professor Shurlee Swain and doctoral student Christin Quirk outlined the hospital's role in past practices.

The report was commissioned by the RWH. The study revealed that of the 26,000 babies born to single mothers at the hospital between 1945 and 1975, more than a quarter were given up for adoption.

A recent ABC TV Four Corners program was critical of the hospital and interviewed several women and nurses involved at the time.

The Senate inquiry committee report has recommended a formal Commonwealth Government apology as well as similar statements from state and territory governments and non-government institutions involved.

The Senate inquiry committee in its report said it was aware of two organisational apologies offered by individual Australian hospitals - Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, made in June 2009 and the Sisters of Mercy, St Anne's Hospital in Perth in March 2010.

Brisbane's Mater Hospital was established by the Sisters of Mercy in 1906 and the order still has a presence there.

"As a Catholic hospital, Mater Health Services endorses the public apology given by Catholic Health Australia who apologised on behalf of all Catholic hospitals and health services in the Senate inquiry last year," a hospital spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said statistics on single mothers impacted by adoption policies of the time were not available.