Senate inquiry into forced adoptions found barbaric, horrific abuses

I speak on behalf of my family and friends in saying the final Inquiry was a long time coming and justice is still not happening for the targets of forced adoptions.
Recognition of these utter travesties of justice is now given in one respect.
The recognition of this social issue (one amongst many in Australia) needs more discussions and debates so this kind of inhumanity never happens again.

With all the talk of our Julian Assange overseas and now granted Asylum by Ecuador (about time humanity was with Julian and the horrifying injustices against him) my many and all I know send him only the best outcome.

The horror of the holocaust doesn;t seem to have affected the powers that be.
There are too many sociopaths amongst their ranks who can't show any empathy.
This is tragic.

For those who can, bravo.

Neil

Everyone with an ounce of humanity cares about forced adoptions having humane and dignified resolutions.
How come the NSW Government have omitted to publicly apologise.
We want to know when they're going to.
The figures of forced adoptions in NSW are outrageous.

Lyn and coworkers
S.J.

I love the way these different social injustices are being talked about here on Indy.
One is about a remarkable man who as Concerned mum and others have rightly said is being persecuted for being a great character and wide acceptance of the good he's done.

The Forced adoptions is about another time yet that doesn't stop me thinking they're both terrifying social injustices in the news nowadays.
I wish the forced adoptions mothers justice finally.
All of them.
I wish Julian Assange and Wikileaks team justice finally.
The two are very different they are still with a lot to do with what Australian governments did do or didn't do, to Australian governments great shame.

Sam

Each and every natural mother who lost their newborn babies to forced adoptions is/are entitled to legal advocacy, legal representation.

I would encourage as many as possible to seek this out.
There are several laws that have been violated with forced adoptions.
One of these is forced adoptions were a 'violation of you the natural mothers Human Rights'.

With Julian Assange as this is being brought up by here and almost everywhere.
There are several laws that have been 'violated'.
There is the 'Violation of Julian Assange's Natural Justice'.
There is the 'Violation of Julian Assange's Human Rights'.

There's a lot to find legally regarding either of these two topical social injustices.

If you seek another website as well as this one that equally has alternative news the mainstream leaves out, and questionably so, go to: http://www.alternativenews.com "What really happened".

Hope you all have justice.
I'm a bit curious and concerned there hasn't been at least one rally as suggested by one of Indy's readers/commentors for forced adoptions.
These do count for something, they tell the government and all the perpetrators you mean business.
I'm glad to hear there was a creative and large public expose of this in the early 90's and two inquiries followed.

My partner and I both support the victims of forced adoptions. It's a national shame, and we understand also an international shame.

My partner and I will be at the Rally for Julian Assange tonight at 5pm at Circular Quay. This is a national and international shame, except for humanitarian Ecuador.

Solicitor
NSW

There is the understanding when grown up and aware in this world there will be people who love you, people who hate you and people who feel indifferent toward you.
No matter WHO you are.
There's also the aware understanding there are people who in their hatred based on fear will act as gestapos and torture innocent people.
That's the case with forced adoptions as I see it.
Having just read the Age and being aware Australia is a patsy for USA and UK it's the case with Julian Assange.
The man needs a lot of support and is getting it in ways no government can obliterate.
Just as on a different strain of social injustice forced adoptions victims will gain recompense.
Those who have suffered due to forced adoptions and stood up solo as one remarkable woman did in the Arts or collectively as with the groups, stood up because they have priniciples.
The man who is now in need of his country's support Julian Assange, when he has so much of the masses support, Julian Assange, has priniciples.
There's a lot of green eyed monsters who really do feel they lack what principled people have, and will try anything to bring principles down.
In the long run they can't.
Principled people are loved by other principled people.
What's Australia shown the world by exiling pregnant adolescent mothers?
What's Australia showing the world by exiling a man whose done more good in his life to expose the most hienious crimes against humanity?
Principles matter.
There's too many who want them and have no emotional access to them.
They're the ones who really need counselling.
Odd the others so often go.
I have to show com-passion for the king rats who bully anyone, somehow at this time and place I can't for the
life of me.
These fear mongering haters with gestapo methods are not worth my time of day, and with that I focus on the prinicipled people only.
Schofield

The terrible truth is the damage has been done to forced adoptions mums and their babies.
I'm against what they all did to these mums when they were powerless, the bleeding sociopaths.

With concern for Julian Assange I'm against what Australia is doing again, or trying to do, allow an innocent Australian national to be persecuted and treated like a criminal when he's not.
He already has been persecuted enough and it's not on.

Get it right Australian government or see how the world works when you keep up your warped thinking bully's are what Aussies or any civilised peoples like and will tolerate.

The worlds in a screwed up mess because power has been abused in flagrant ways again and again.
USA and UK are sick governments if they don;t stop persecuting Julian Assange.

I'm sad the mums had to lose their babies to infertile married couples simple because they were unwed.
I can show empathy and do.
They need legal help as well as what the Report recommends.

Julian Assange has plenty of the finest legal minds working for him.

All the very best to the mums and their children.
Keep on standing up and fighting for your rights.
You were more than brutally wronged.

Amanda

For Mark, it's Graeme Innes, not Glen Innes acting as Commissioner for Anti-discrimimation against persons with disabilities.
Certain individual forced adoptions mothers and their children may have disabilities, they would also have due to insights gained from those tragedies the most amazing abilities.

Best wishes to all who have or do suffer in the name of humanity.

In an inner city suburb of Sydney I observed two of my neighbours and friends, two teenage boys, conscripted into war in Vietnam. They disappeared and their presence was missed as I was filled with such hurt at where they were going.
At the very same time I saw one teenage girl disappear unbeknown to us all because she was pregnant.
Though when she returned she was not secretive about it and didn't suffer in total silence, however, in more silence than I had ever seen her before. She was different.
I was saddened further.
She was prior a friend who would call into our family home with her usual vivacity and make our day with her love of life and unusual flair. We would be excited just to have her company. The boys well they were boys and we were a little more distant yet still neighbour friendly.

Time later the two teenage boys returned home and they were very different to the friends I'd known before they left. I was again hurt and saddened.
The teenage girl came home also, and again she was very different to when she had left.

I could observe, very well, and was wanting to connect with all three of these old friends, yet something stopped us.

Whatever these three had individually gone through it showed.
There was no secrecy about any of their going away and for what reasons, the teenage boys went overseas for very different reason to the teenage girl who went into the country and then into a private come public hospital where she would eventually lose her baby to strangers and via forced adoption.

I've never forgotten how I felt when I remet all three of these people.
All changed in ways I couldn't put my finger on except the teenage boys were now not so studious and the teenage girl was no longer so vivacious.

The horrors of forced adoptions I can't understand fully except I have witmessed one target. I'm today appalled and saddened by what my friend went through, though as I wasn't allowed to visit her I didn't know the full extent.

The horrors of the Vietnam war I can't understand fully either except I have witnessed two targets who were conscripted.

An end to mindless horrific brutality that serves no purpose other than for those who do not value life, all people's lives.

Joy

One of my relatives lost her baby to forced adoption.
This young one spent twelve years hiding away the heavy depression of that loss from everyone.
She hid it so well nobody knew she was depressed.
Suddenly, twelve years after the loss this now women went into Chelmsford and had shock treatment for her depression.

This is one only account and the one I know.
I'm outraged at what the 'carers' din't do and what they did do to all the victims.
This all needs legal redress.

Having said they're victims, that's rubbish. So many of them are anyhthing but, and despite the enitvitable sadness that leades to depression, they overcome it with the right help and that help needs a whole lot of time.
Any one of us could fall into that depression with any tragic loss at this.

Full support for forced adoptions mothers, it's no small loss and never to be taken flippantly.

Patsy

I've met Patsy and her sister.
They talked about the adopted daughter who was vetoed by her birth mother. They, the relatives, are going to meet up with this daughter, being her aunties.

Herein lies some idea of the tragedy of forced adoptions.
The mother did have shock treatment at Chelmsford (what I consider an outdated remedy for any psyhcological injury such as depression) and from that time on didn't allow herself to think let alone feel anything about her past.
She had to forget what was too painful to remember, and found that 'forgetfulness' a kind of cure, or was it? in the form of Shock Treatment at the infamous Chelmsford.

The adoptees who wonder why they are being vetoed concern me as a fellow human, as they may think it's a rejection of them, when it's not, when the facts are on the table.

A lot of young mothers who lost to forced adoptions have spent time in depression, many may still be there.
There's anger in depression, one of the symptoms.
Though each individual handles that anger differently.
Anger at injustice is healthy only when it's redirected.
That's the problem. Too many can't find the right way to express their anger.
Depression happens when enough sad things happen in one's life, and the accumulative effects are dark, dim and too often negative thinking.

The mother Patsy talks about vetoed her own daughter After she had shock treatment at Chelmsford.
I have to wonder how shock treatment would be the remedy of choice by any psychiatrist/s in this instance or any to do with forced adoptions and reactive depression.

I know enough about Chelmsford it's dark history. It did end up closing because of it's sleep therapy and shock treatments given ad hoc.

When a birth mother vetoes their own child they do so because what they have felt for several or too many years is far too painful to look at; they are in need of talking therapy, and empathic active listening therapists.

This raises the question of how destructive it is to dwell on the past completely, and how more so destructive it is to ignore it.

Patsy's relative, the birth mother, is not in touch with her feelings as she goes along as if a slate had wiped clean the tragedy she had endured.
That's what shock treatment does. If any pychiatrist wants to tell me the benefits of this treatment I invite them to.
That's fairly dangerous, wiping out brain cells, in the long run. That's one problem with treatments like shock treatment. The do erase too much.
The psyche is not so simple, and even today we still don't know the real effects of shock treatment or of the workings of the mind.

For the daughter who has been vetoed we can only think she may feel as if a door has closed. To be positive minded, where there's life there's hope.
Doors are doors they can open and close.
A door was closed on her birth mother, twice.

Vetoes happen, I believe, because it's all far too painful psychologically to deal with what forced adoptions effects.
The problem is when anyone wipes away their past, just gets on with it as if nothing happened aside from some shock treatment there are bound to be reprecussions.

Yet that's what the authorities told the birth mothers to do "get on with it" how crude.

I feel for the adopted daughter, and I feel for the birh mother.

How many birth mothers have suffered at the hands of wrong psychiatrists and other health professionals.
How many adoptees live in deep sadness maybe depression because they can't make contact with their original mothers.

Several people talk about the law, and correct, the law is there for the birth mothers. Go for it if you can find the right lawyer.

I don't see all the parallels with Assange as he has ample great lawyers helping him, as well as positive publicity from principled people. I am with every desire and empathy for his life, safety, causes and justice.

The publiciity for forced adoptions because it's more personal, from the past, yet still affecting too many, has been limited and hasn't drawn such legal sympathy. Why not?

The law for recompense is not there for the adoptees, I am sad that's so.
Black and white laws are too uncivilised for me.

Mother and more

Prue Goward on ABC airing that an apology from NSW is coming.
She tells the public there may be the legal right to sue if there were witnesses.
There's a wrong there as there would be few perpetrators who would admit liability on that level, and one can lititage without witnesses, with records and their medical and other histories.

Boo and more boos to the stupid man who said there would be floodgates open for litigation.
Where there is personal injury on this major scale there is every right to litigate. Let the floodgates open, they already have.

Good on Lily Arthur from the group Origins for stating what is factual and conscionable in this ABC airing.
An apology is not worth anything without the truth wholly exposed.

Thanks Indy.
Abi(gail)
21.08.2012

Good on the Paddington artist Pamela Bridgefoot who except for a small yet amazing group of artistic colleagues stood up alone and dared to tell the truth to power about forced adoptions.
She held her public multi-genre expose entitled 'Natural parent' on the first day of Spring 1992.
I wrote one of the media releases to what was to be a crowded house event that shone a first light on what was to collectively follow.
I believe Pamela knew this had to be addressed collectively, yet her of her convictions and remarkable stance has always caused admiration by many who stand for truth and principles.

Regards
Gail Edwards

It looks like a lot of people can't access Indymedia and we wonder how this happened and why.
A lot have come to us saying this section and Indymedia generally has a "block" outrageous.

All independent news media is needed to balance the mainstream that too often leaves out a lot worth knowing.
Whether it be about forced adoptions or any other social cause.

We've contacted Electronics Frontiers Australia and trust they seek to rectify this problem.

We want this media to keep growing and there's too much taking the truth away from the people or unconscionable censorship from whoeever is doing this, taking Indymedia away from the public of Australia, not on.

James

We found out Dr. Geoff Rickarby in his first submission to Parliament mentioned comparisons between how patients were treated at Chelsmford under the crazed sleep therapy they did there and how the mums in forced adoptions were treated as patients when losing their own flesh and blood.

We see Patsy mentions shock treatment, that many psychiatrists find abominable today, it was given to her relative, I think her own sister, after she lost to forced adoptions.

If we're correct, it appears so, there was a Royal Commission into Chelmsford and it thereafter closed. Good one.
There should be a Royal Commission into forced adoptions as well. A senate Inquiry is not enough for these barbaric widespread practices.

To the person who raised Indymedia is off the map, that's true, to get here you have to go through layers upon layers of blockages, that's more than censorship, that's deliberate denying the people their human rights today. Indymedia allows the truth to surface where other news media often leaves out vital details, if not vital truths as well.

We want a public national apology in 2012 not 2013 thanks very much. It has to be sincere as with all the truths acknowledged.

Roger and Uelrika

A national disgrace, and it's time for a national; apology.

terry

Dr Geoff Rickarby did write about Chelmsford and the comparisons with Forced adoptions. We read it all the whole submission of his and it covered a lot of ground, opened our eyes.
He also wrote about the sufferers being the birthing mums often having p.t.s.d. similar to that of those who come back from war.
This is an urgent and important social injustice.
I recommend more thanh a Senate Inquiry and more than an apology in 2013.
Forced adoptions have disturbed the Australian public.

One of the Australian public against violence directed at unwed pregnant women or anyone in any vulnerable places.
jake

Talking about forced adoptions was not so long ago considered too controversial.=, to a large number of Australian citizens I'm told.
As if it were something like talking about international secrets being uncovered.
It was talking about national, and even international secrets and lies. What gets me is the large numbers who found it controversial only short time ago.
I was working for a Supreme Court Barrister when she told me I should shoush up about forced adoptions as they were "Controversial", her words, not mine.
I felt wrong or was made feel wrong for being honest and upfront about this social cause. That didn't stop me seeing reality and the horror of these.
It seems to me what is "controversial today" is not so tomorrow, and I now understand why.
I have no respect for anyone who has to hide the truths of things because they may seem or to them are controversial.
I now think the Supreme Court Barrister had some in built biases rather than what she actually said, and for this there is the question of her position, and it's ethical responsibilities. How many judges and barristers are this rigid? This so black and white it's come to a place where there may need to be large scale law reform on this and other legal social causes.
Just thought this might unravel some insights into forced adoptions and how they've been percieved by all kinds of people prior to the few creative entrepenuers in this field, and the Greens opening up the whole picture, or what picture we are allowed to see at this time.
I'm sure there's more, and all I hear about makes me sick to know it actually happened and was kept so quiet from the public.
It was not mores of the time because I know too many from those times who had family and other support to help them keep their babies.

Sad to see Bob Brown go, the Greens are doing well on many fronts, he lead the way and with gusto.
I pass him a handshake and wish him all the best in whatever he pursues, a civilised, proactive, esteemed very good man.

Goo luck to the mothers no matter where you are now you have my support.
I never did think and don't think it was or is controversial or should have been disgracefully swept under the carpet for all this time. The further harm that did to so many is abominable.

Page

Hi this a letter i have sent out to any ministers etc that have the power to change things ... this is my story ..

My name is Tasha Grimes and i am one of the 158 (approx)adoptees still living with a veto which was placed by my birth mother ...
Firstly i want to say thankyou to you and all the other members of parliament who acknowledged there was wrong doing in past adoption practices and apologised for the hurt that it caused ..
for me the apology has meant i finally made contact with people just like me , people who have a veto as well . I have learnt that only when you are a veto yourself you can truly understand the pain it causes . Being an adoptee and finding out you were forcibly removed from your mother is terrible .. Being a vetoed adoptee and not knowing if you were forceibly removed is worse .
My whole life ive been denied an identi
ty because a 16 year old girl was given the power to keep it from me forever .. she had the choice to veto me and she did , if it was forced she wouldnt be renewing every 5 years and more to the point she would of been part of this apology process ...
How is this fair ? How did this happen ? The worst thing is its a catch 22 , i cant find out if she had done her homework and decided a veto was her best option OR she was scared vulnerable and she was convinced by a person of authority .. This is only one question that cant be answered because of the veto , i have hundreds .. from is there cancer in my family to i wonder who i look like ... its endless
In 1989 the law changed ... not for me it didnt and not for the 150 other vetos .. to this day we still cant have any identyfing information .. No identity , No medical history , No fathers name ... Nothing ....
I have two daughters 20 and 13 who have had to grow up not knowing as well , thats hard enough for me to live with , racked with guilt over something i have no control over .I do not want my girls to go thru what i have .I want them to bring up thier children knowing exactly where they came from.
Its very sad that i have to write a letter and explain my personal life to a complete stranger just to get what everyone else has and that is Basic Human Rights
Please take the time to try and imagine how you would feel if this were you ...
im looking forward to hearing from you ..

I struggle everyday to understand why the few of us with the " old " vetoes just cant be free of it ?? Im 40 yrs old and i cant ever have back all the years i cd at the very least known who i am :( .. How can this possibly affect my birth mother worse than me now ?? she has lived the all of her life with the choice to change things ... at least i can have a few years of knowing who i am if it was overided .. i challenge anyone to xplain to me how at all is this fair ?? i dont want contact theres no way i cd let her walk in now and extend herself to my girls , how damaging wd that be when we all know she cd of came into our lives anytime in the last 30 years ... my biggest fear is still writing this in ten years time , i know i will give up b4 then , its like being rejected all over again ..

My heart goes out to you tasha and I wish I could clarify a lot in a small time.
I cannot.
I am not your birth mother however I do know for absolutely sure no birth mother could legally or otherwisw Veto their born infant at the time she lost her or him.
There's no such thing as doing this.

I feel a depth of pain reading what you write yet don't see how you can't understand your mother suffered tragically too.
All losses are suffering, I know, however, when a mother or father loses an infant in forced adoptions they lose their own being. I understand the infant loses en masse also. Adoption is really to be looked at for these reasons.
I can't speak for everyone, there are exceptions.
I can speak for the horrifying anguish of losing that lasts a lifetime the birthing mother feels.
It doesn't stop because of anything or anyone.
It can be eased by counselling.
I believe so can yours, by counselling.

If Missy Higgins could come out and admit she had depression why is it so hard for so many to admit they are down at heart and need a helping hand.

I hear a lot of your unspoken anger, it's justifiable.
The adoptees, what a word, the infants born from the unmarried mothers love.
If you read a lot of Indymedia it tells you a lot more than the superficial about how adoptees cope with your/their loss.
There's anger for everyone, I do understand.
Channel that anger, and good on you for channelling it on Indy so a lot of people can read how it is for you.
If this sounds patronising please forgive me, that's the last thing I aim to be.
I wish you a world of new life and may something wonderful come out of the shadows you seem to say you have all lived in for so long.

The law is black and white and it doesn't allow the adoptees to litigate.
This is one sad reality.
It does not however take away the fact you matter, you are a significant person/s, and your identity has needs to be examined, your way, or with help from professionals.
I wonder who can help you in trully tangible ways to at least have your identity given to you, in that your background, veto or not.

I personally can;t understand how anyone could veto their own child.

I wish you a world of good fortune from here on in, as I do all and any adoptees who have been vetoed.

It's hard to understand yet some losses are so tragic so mindbending terrible the mother simply can't go back to even look at them.
Some do, yet it takes years before they do.
Some never do, and have denied their own love, pushed it under, but believe me if it were that painful there was love there for their infants.
What's too painful to remember many choose to forget is a truism. A vetoe is one way to forget, it doesn't in the long run work.
Your mums need therapy and how.
I didn;t veto my child however it took some years before I could even talk about the one I loved so much I used to look to the sky every evening and send my love to her.
Be, you are loved
Sonia

Tasha Grimes's comment made me sad.
There's a lot of misunderstanding.
No 16 year old pregtnant and unmarried had any power whatsoever.
They certainly couldn't sign a Veto at that age, no way.
Only in adulthood.
Somebody have more on this???

I admire GRimes for telling her story and am so glad she's found a support group of likeminded people.
Some things appear one way when they're another.

Have to stay with facts though, no biological mum was allowed to veto their infant, and most were forced to sign the consent forms under what is now considered extremist measures by anybody's standards.

Good on Grimes for raising how the Vetoes can affect, and with that how they can be changed (flexible laws are just laws) so the adopted people can have access to identifying information about their history.

Grimes has forged an identity without this though, as a lot of people who like autonomoy do.
I my self always thought the grass was greener when I was a kid and wanted to be adopted.
What a joke in the long run.
Though, families no matter what are hard yakka relationships, all the different kinds.

Best for Grimes and her peers.

Ros Williams

It's sad to read how an adoptee can write their bouquets to a government that had policies that made forced adoptions happen, and in the same time send out the message that the 16 year old unwed mum was to blame for her, the adoptee, having no identity.
There were no choices, voices or supports for that 16 year old or any of the others.
Tasha Grimes writes ...."my whole life I've been denied an identity because a 16 yr old girl was given the power to keep it from me". That's a shocking thing to read and how could a loving person write this?
This is blaming and shaming the natural mother yet again, is not on Tasha Grimes, with all due respect for your own pains. I hope they heal well and trully for you and your friends made because of the Senate Inquiry.
How untrue is this that the mothers were heartless monsters who didn't wwant to know their babies, love them raise them.
All of the 16 year olds were power-less, not with any power, otherwise forced adoptions would not have happened.
I hope clarity comes to the fore for adoptees like Tasha as there's really no need to cripple a mother with "You did this to me" when truth may be far, far from that and usually is. In this case it has to be, Vetoes can only be given by adoptees or bio. parents when they are older, not when they are teenagers in precarious circumstances.
You deserve your history and culture being informed to you and that shouldn't be part of any Veto, that is to deny you this. Blame the powers that be for these Vetoes.
Do express how hurt you are your own bio. mum keeps missing your call. She's a sad woman indeed. Too sad for me.
The laws seem a bit odd, and need updating I reckon.
Let's not forget adoptees by the many have vetoed theit mums.
Vetoes are not to fault and floor the vulnerable bio. mum because that's where a lot of the fault lies with yesterdays neglectful policies and laws.
Shame and blame the bio. mums again is not fair.
It's outrageous, if you read any of their stories..
Hope you find your clarity and identity Tasha Grimes without shaming and blaming.
We note you don't shame nor blame the governments who allowed this to go on for decades, you commend thenm, and rightly so, you're not altruistic as mums tend to be.
I acknowledge that if your mumj Tasha Grimes keeps putting out a Veto every five years this would naturally create hurt for you. What a joke however that the law makes it so difficult, the law combined with government red tape, that you can't have some identiyfing information/history at all??
Your feelings are as valid as everyone else's and I do respect the pain of rejection from your bio mum.
My dad rejects me, always has, to gain his approval is impossible, and I've finally accepted this and moved on.
Though at least I know or have some clues to my history.
I frankly don't care. Geneolgy is important more important is living in the now and finding one's true family.
They are often not our family of birth for many of us, though I do love my first family, it's not reciprocated very well if at all.
Adoption causes a lot of confusion for too many.
Clarity: The bio. mums had no power whatsoever, that's the tragedy, as being an unwed mum is such a vulnerable and needy place to be.
Jesse

If we're talking about blame and shame there's been none for the natural fathers.
They may not have been identified,as the mums may not have been allowed to put their names on the birth certificates, via the consent forms??
Whatever, there were birth dads and why there's always been this demonizing the natural mothers only beats me. Though it's found the authorities wouldn't include them on paper. Shame, shame, shame.
The natural mums have rights and need humanity shown to them at long last.
I'm really troubled no one mentions the natural dads.

Tess

I have read what Tasha has written as well as your comments and think you must be mistaken in your understanding of the situation - i don't feel at any stage that Tash is congratulating the government for their abuse of her rights. Instead she is making the statement that while her mother was once a 16 year old girl who was vulnerable and in a situation that was beyond her capabilities to deal with, she is not now. Now she is an adult, one who needs to take responsibility for her actions. To place a veto on ones child is an abhorrent act. The government while misguided does not place the actual veto they only provide the means - the responsibility belongs with the now adult birth mother - who in many minds could be misunderstood for being selfish, lacking empathy or compassion and who is wholeheartedly missing an opportunity to if not put things right at least offer some sort of closure to the child she "gave" up many moons ago. I guess this is the crux of the problem - if the poor teenage birth mothers was vulnerable and scared and doing what she was coerced to do at the time that is no longer the case - who is coercing her now?
One thing i can assure you is that being vetoed is horrible thing, something that follows one around like a stone, something that is constantly reminded, something that has been brought to the fore with the recent apologies and attention given to the birth mothers - at least they had some choice the infants had none.
While we cannot be certain that all the birth mothers wanted their children we can be certain that all the relinquished children wanted their mothers! Please think about this before you reply ....

While everyone is entitled to their opinion, when it comes to personal experiences and feelings, nobody has the right to tell another person what is right and wrong. My mother told me her story when I met her, the truth was painful but I needed to know. Since then you would not believe how many mothers have told me how it would have been for her (and me). Not true! They were not there, they cannot possibly know, yet they insist they know better. It is arrogant and disrespectful. We are not little children who can be told what to think and feel. We will not be bullied into thinking differently. Just let adopted people speak for themselves. If you think they are wrong, bad luck - unless it is about you it is none of your business. There are many adopted people like Tasha who live day in day out not knowing who they are. This is a human rights abuse, we are all entitled to know our roots and kin. So instead of making judgements and casting aspersions at someone who is living with such dreadful secrecy and lies it would be nice if you could acknowledge that unless you have lived it you cannot possibly understand it and for once, just listen.

I don't think any of the comments about Tasha Grimes were trying to convince her to not express herself, nor putting her down, quite the opposite.
She rightly has every right to speak her mind. every right.
It's also true no one whether they be the adoptees, the birth mothers or fathers, or the adoptive parents, can talk for the collective.
Each person has their own story, truth.
That's why forced adoptions cannot be looked at generically.
That's also why unique voices are needed.
It's terribly sad to know that many adoptees feel they were given no choices, which is truth, and that their mothers were given choices.
The mothers weren't given choices as has been shown again and again. I wish enough people could understand this a bit better.
I acknowledge there may be very cold hearted persons who don't care, and this horrifies me. They are not as I know it the birth mums many I've met.
Forced adoptions is about coercion and all choices being taken away.
I'm terribly sad Tasha's mother can't retract her veto, as well as her freinds who are in the same situtaion.
For my knowing I understand vetoes from adoptees, happening all over the place, and the pain this causes the mothers, excruciating pain at this horrible rejection, when all the mothers want to do is tell their children "we wanted you, loved you, and this was all out of our hands, the forced adoptions".
"We were drugged to the hilt, we were emotionally and physically abused, we were bullied into signing under duress what we had no inclination would reverberate in ultimate loss for life for many."
This does not mean I think the mums human rights are greater than the childrens, to the contrary, they are equal, and I would never disregard the humanity of persons like Tasha, and her friends who were also vetoed.
I have the humanity to see the wider picture, Tasha has every right to express her feelings, they are very valid.
I wish persons all could walk in other people's shoes and show empathy.
As somebody said on this post we all have to actively promote empathy as this is the only way through this.
I can't be Tasha however I empathise with her and her friends, it must be so terrible.
It's not been given enough attention, so good Tasha has spoken out as have others about how it is for individual adoptees, and what they feel.
I'm seconding please don't demonize all birth mothers because one or some have vetoed their children.
Demonizing doesn't serve any constructive purpose.
I'm also suggesting please don't demonize the adoptees who veto their birth mums and dads.
Please don't demonize anybody in this except judge and scrutinise the perpetrators of this social injustice. They did wrong and are now acknowledging this.
We have to walk in a lot of shoes.
This is a very sensitive social issue, and I feel for all who suffer.
Suffering takes different forms.
In hope Tasha and all adoptees know they are never discounted, never with anybody who has humanity's wish to have their voices suppressed (as their mothers voices were at time of forced adoptions) and that they're loved and so loveable.
I can only imagine how it must feel for Tasha and her friends and my heart goes out to her and them.
With respect to Tasha and her friends.
Marilyn

There was a statement made by Tasha that she wanted advice, that's why I think people responded.
To respond is to think, and to have first listened with the heart.
Reaction is different.

We don't mind hearing more of what Tasha or her colleaguies have to say, adoptees have our own stories to tell. It's when we do this with some kind of hurting the already hurt that it may seem irrational, or highly emoionally charged.
Forced adoptions are emotionally charged though.

Go for it, any other adoptees who want to tell their story.
We're listening, or at least I can say with all fact I am.
It's correct no one can speak for another person, I agree.
I can't tell my story, and thanks for not asking me why.
Tell it as it is for you all if you want to though, and those of us who care are listening.

If one or two make comments, they have that right too.
It's only normal to want to ease another's suffering as I see it. I would love to ease people like Tasha's suffering and am open to these views and experiences, though wont make any substantial comments as am a listener only, by request. I can respect it when another tells me they need an ear only. Maybe Tasha should have said that in her first talk on Indy, not saying she's wrong to do it her way.

Counsellors are the best listeners, I've found, it's their work, part of it, I can say that as an adoptee who suffers and will until whatever.
Vetoes suck, I know this I can at least say that too.
by Zoe (an adoptee)

I have actively lisened all my life, not always by choice.
I've been a lifelong therapist to people who tell me Don't show any human concern, just listen.
My voice was stopped at every turn, by these words, JUST LISTEN.
I'm not just listening anymore, I'm with human rights to say what I feel and think too.
I'm not a fulltime unpaid therapist who can just listen to everyone who commands me to be so, not anymore.
With forced adoptions I hear the birth mothers were commanded "just listen and shut up for goodness sake"
They did this and how, and now they can speak, finally.
Likewise so can the adopted ones. The adoptees individually or collectively can't command just listen to anyone as that's denying others the right to freedom of speech. We all have that human right.
Just listen is what too many governmnets say, if they listened more than talked so much about what the Australian people want, as if they know, we might get somewhere.
It's they who should stop talking about what they wrongly think all Aussies want not civilians like you and me.
Just listen, and I did to my dad, my brother and all others for years, mouth shut tight like I was living in a victorian era.
Something happened and I finally spoke back, a breakthrough.
Finally found my way to being assertive and able to share conversations, rather than be a dumbed down listener.
That took years, and no one is going to ever tell me or anyone I know just listen and think it's o.k. to suppress other people's concerns. My husband never says just listen and expect that to be how our relationship or communication is. He knows better than my dad and brother do.
Just listen is not what human rights are all about, though Amanda thinks it is, and a lot of others as well.
Human concern for my or anybody's human suffering is healthy, and no one has the right to say just listen, and shut the f... up.
Also please stop giving mums this crap.
My mother is commanded by my brother and my dad just listen, you stupid woman, she complies, as I watch dumbstruck by their bullying her into accepting anything and everything they have to say to her without allowing her any say whatsoever. She's been subjected to this like me for most of our lives, she unlike me has now cowered for good. It's aweful to see.
Help us, mothers get so much flack it isn't funny.
I'm all for active listening and reciprocal human concern that leads to empathic offering of concern and humanity.
Just listen, no I wont, and would have said something about the like adoptees plight had I not been taken back by that command, one I've heard all my life.
I'm not a paid therapist who just listens, sometimes or often advises, and allows anyone and everyone to say anything and asks just listen, unconsciously or consciously make out it's some sort of average the mums individually didn't give a hoot. They did, most of them, motherhood is like that I'm a mother now and know adoptive mums, birth mums, IVF mums, and a lot of people involved in forced adoptions as well as family's very differnt all in kind.
Human rights are for everybody and everybody has rights to show concern and speak back and say I wont just listen, I'm part of forced adoptions also, so I'll make a concerned comment.
Mother of two, wife, whose concerned for all who've been damaged by forced adoptions because I'm human and been drawn into this social cause I think is very important.
Thanks Indy

The unwed birth mums had a world of judgements showered on them when they were pregnant and afterwards, by biased, bigoted, discriminatory, unempathic people.
Many still have this, even after the Senate Inquiry.
They were slandered by these discriminatory people on a regular basis if they told anyone they had lost their babies to adoption.
The children of these mums had no such things.
They did, however, grow up looking different to their siblings, if they had these, or their parents, and there would have possibly been resentment because of this. Resentment by the adoptees, and whose to blame them for this.
What doesn't make sense is to again make out the birth mums didn't want to hold, nurture and love their own flesh and blood when a Senate Inquiry has found out they did.
My heart aches for the adoptees who feel guilt.
My heart aches for the birth mums who have felt guilt that doesn't belong to them either, longer, and never had it recognised until a certain time, not long ago.
Guilt is a terrible emotion and I think it needs to be examined and let go of.
The trully guilty who first showed the birth mums and their babies prejudice and discrimination of the most despicable kind whilst they were segregated and told they were "bad" when they were not, are to own their own guilt and take it back from the birth mums and their babies now many grown up. Take back what doesn't belong to these persons, birth mums and adoptees alike.
Not all are grown up.
This has been happening right up until very recent times, we're not even sure it isn't happening today.
Vetoes are rigid. The old ones appear to more than need to be looked at, so adoptees who need to know have knowledge about their roots. That's only normal, that need to know.
I'm very saddened by the cruelty of bigoted, discriminating persons who can't look at themselves, have to project their contempt and prejudices onto others, and can't see the effects of their cruelty. I pity these people.
We need sincere empathy and it wont come from throwing stones where they've already been thrown, that's at the birth mums and their babies who were denied human rights and a whole lot more.
It isn't unreasonable for adoptees to ask for heritage information to be given them, whether this means bending the rules or having some law reforms there.
It isn't wrong for birth mums to say "stop, back off" we've been judged and scrutinised for way too long, and don't need any more discrimination or devaluing.
Thanks
Andrea and family

Has anybody heard about the well being of the adoptees and birth parents who put submissions into the Senate Inquiry.
Did they get remuneration for their time and effort doing this?
I hope they're all doing well, it must be hard, waiting for the outcome of the Report, which is taking it's time.
Chesterman

Jesse says a lot of kind things.
Calling her a sad bitter birth mother is over the top and stpid Tasha Grimes.
Hold it in or take your cruelty re. burth mums to a professional or the clergy.
Enough knocking birth mums, they've been through hell too.
They too are reliving it all this time around.
I'm 17yrs old and am watching my mum go through a nightmare yet she doesn't and wouldn't put down anyone in the adoption areas, adoptees included.
My mums daughter vetoed her.
It works both ways.
There are more vetoes put out by adoptees than there are vetoes put out by birth parents we found out.
Good on the caring people who don't want to dump on others who are hurting and birth mums are included here.
I'm kind of glad Tasha Grimes wrote to the ministers as that shows she's proactive and doing some constructive things for her cause, and justice .
Justice for the birth mums and justice for the adoptees as well.
Thankyou
Tony

It's sad that the natural mothers are looking for money as a result of the apology. How much money has changed hands in the name of adoptees? If they care so much about adoptees, why do mothers continue to abuse and demonise adoptees online? The cyber bullying and misinformation needs to stop. We were not all kidnapped. We do not all have Stockholm Syndrome. In many cases, we were relinquished and the noisy minority of mothers can not speak for every mother. Fathers and adoptees are the ones who really had no choice. It is an appalling breach of human rights that fathers were denied knowledge of our births in many cases, that they had no choice over whether we were adopted and their names are not on our original birth certificates. It would be an insult to adoptees if mothers who disrespect and bully adoptees online, who perpetuate myths, and continually direct their rage towards adoptees were given money to compensate them for losing us. The lateral violence directed at adoptees is the hidden story that the public should be aware of.

I'm reading a lot of good thing on Indy about Forced adoptions.
My husband was adopted and in that time so I'm interested.
What is silly I think is when commenters start barking out orders as Joanne and some others have.
It's a website for comments, not vitriol and harming anybody further.
My heart is hurting as I see my husband going into himself and not wanting to talk about adoption or what the Senate have done.
He has kind of closed up. I feel helpless.
His birth mum is an angel our whole family love and she adores him and his adoptive parents have passed. We want her to feel better too, it's sad seeing her crumble as well, she's so beautiful and loving.
She can't get my husband to talk either, to express what he feels or whats going on.
I invite some exceptional person that is someone with a load of empathy and knowledge, understanding to offer me some help so my husband can talk about his problems.
He's really lost I'm his rock, or so he tells me, yet whenever he withdraws I don't know what to do, and let him go his own way, and just pray. He doesn't believe in prayer or that's what he tells me.
Adoption has turned my family upside down especially the recent truths opened up to all of us/
It's tragedy adoption, nothing less.
I'm very tired of carrying a very heavy load with all this and love my family to pieces, don't want them to break apart at any time, but it's stressful too much of late.
Carol

Thankyou so much to the people who have spoken out for the adoptees. The mothers have memories of their lives BEFORE adoption and most of them take for granted that they know their family stories and are connected in most ways to the continuity of that. Adoptees have not experienced what so many take for granted, yet some people still insist on telling us how we should feel. We had no say in what happened to us and adoption has been with us for our whole lives. I cannot understand why you would veto your own child. That is repugnant to me. You may not have had a choice to have your child adopted out, but you have the choice to help make it right now and to give your own flesh and blood the feeling of continuity and belonging. A priceless gift.

The forced adoptions mums are getting a bashing here - as my mother is one of them I say that's too inhumane. I'm not knocking the elderly they're not all bitter, and I'm not knocking children.
The birth mums have shown they are adults though by moving forward with what they have.
Progessive steps, adult ones.
Haven't they suffered enough. I can see what's happening here lately on Indy and it's like how it was when forced adoptions happened, discrimination - that's not alllowed here anymore.
My mum is neither bitter though she's bitter-sweet nor is she too sad to have raised me and well.
She lost her first baby and I'm appalled at anybody saying these mums are sad and bitter.
They're justifiably with a need for justice where it was lacking.
I'm barracking for my mum and all her peers who have the strength to say it for themselves and when necessary to tell the birth mother bashers 'Bully's are real losers' every time.
For my mum with love

Clara

All the people I've met investigating forced adoptions have shown by their actions rather than words they care for the adoptees, often above and beyond themselves.
This inlcudes several groups of individuals who are biological mothers.
There's no lateral violence against adoptees to the contrary.
When anybody has personal injury, be they a biological mother or an adoptee they have every right to claim compensation.
Forced adoptions has shown with ample evidemce there is justifiable reasons why many would want compensation.

The adopted parents needed a baby and they got one through forced adoptions, even if they didn't know it was this.
The babies got parents, even if they werent their biological parents.
The young women who lost babies to forced adoptions and the number is huge, lost everyone.
They were alone before the birth and afterwards.
How do I know this.
From listening and really hard to too many to count biological mothers, adoptees and also adoptive parents.
The reason the Senate had this insuiry was because there was found that so many mothers who lost that way were struggling, suffering so badly it was like going through a war, their guilt so tragic, and too common to discount.
They wanted, the many I've met, the record to to be straight:
They did not want to lose theit babies, and couldn't save them from being taken by stranger parents, try as they did time and again.
They were forced into losing them to strangers.
That has torn their lives however none I've met are bitter toward anyone, and all they really want is for their adopted children to know they are loved and for justice finally. They still love their lost babies as many have no other memory as they haven't met their children yet.
These mums are in pain because they are being rejected by vetoes from their own born babies who would be older now.

There are always exceptions, and these have been raised here, let's not forget the policies in place to "remove" the babies from "unmarried mothers" that was in place at the time of forced adoptions.

I think a lot of the bitter anger certain people are expressing about forced adoptions is better served directed with their loved ones or professionals with counsling skills to find some resolution.

We can't keep knocking the biological mothers.
The ones I know are for one looking after her elderly mum and can't speak for herself even for the Senate, for two, looking after her other children and has had losses to death of six people in last few years, for three another biological mum is a high flyer who wants to meet her forced adopted child but that person has put a veto out, and on and on it goes.

Let's not pretend that compensation is all about money for nothing when it comes to a very profoundly traumatic experience affecting a womens whole life.
Compensation in money terms has been given for a lot less.

Good on Porters for having a class action.
The pregnant girls really were given toxic drugs like Stilboestral that is a known carcinogenic, as well as drugged to sign consent forms.
This is now known fact.

I've lost one baby not to adoption, and I for one think it's one of the worst nightmares, I have a husband who can support me through this as he lost too.
Doesn;t make it an easier loss and I find it hard reading what a few are saying about motherhood, being a parent who loses.
Our loss didn't include violence against us by churchs, governments and corporations as forced adoptions did, as has been found, and is on hard copy.

I'm so glad the Senate Inquiry looked at forced adoptions. Am so so sad there are adoptees out there who can't yet see the whole picture, or who write as if they can't and want to damn the biological mothers for wanting justice whether it be compensation or apologies and counselling.

I'm all for Vetoes being adjusted so there is some flexibility, as one said everyone has rights to know their roots. If we had no history that must be very painful and my husband and I can empathise with that.

The Report does recommend a lot of good things and for justifiable reasons.

In hope
Megan

Any extremist comments about the biological mums are just that.
When any of them are individually or collectively slandered by adoptees who have issues or those who want to reiginite the hate that was given them during the baby scoop era there is legal redress for this.

I'm fully supportive of the biological mothers' human rights as well as the adoptees human rights.
None of these need any damaging labels or discriminating dialogue on any websites, and if anyone wants to covertly or overtly slander a biological mother the courts are open and running. These many thousands have been harmed enough never asking to have their infants taken from them.
They loved and needed the infants as much as the infants needed them.

Father of four (married to adoptee)
Profession: Law

I'm all for adoptees talking openly about their misfortnes.
What I find distasteul is any one of them or more forcing their views onto others who at this time are looking at the atrocities committed on innocent birth mums and their babies.
Forced adoptions has now been proven to be a reality.
We all need to accept this or bite our tongues if we can't fathom it.
I fully support what the birth mums are seeking after years of underhanded slader, defamation and abuse.
Michells

When adoptees talk about being bullied by natural mothers they are speaking the truth. It is not slander or defamation if it is a true statement. However, having a website that is biased and is simply a database of articles claiming all adoptees are damaged and broken is likely to give people a negative view of adoptees. Publishing data that is intended to portray a group of people in a negative light and is untrue, is actually defamation.

This is not a competition about who has suffered the most, and which group is fundamentally bad. Continually claiming that all adoptees were kidnapped, that our adoptive parents are vultures, that they are child abducters and using derogative terms to describe them is wrong. We have all suffered and adoptees are the ones who definitely never had a choice.

Directing anger towards adoptees, telling them how to think and denying their suffering does nothing to help the cause. Why are natural mothers so angry at adoptees? We never asked to be adopted, we had no say in what happened to mothers, we had absolutely nothing to do with it. Are they directing anger towards us as a group because their reunions failed? Is it because they are angry at our adoptive parents therefore they are angry at adoptive families which we are a part of? Are they upset that we dare to say that we have pain and they want to claim it only affected them?

I don't deny the suffering that many mothers experienced. I hope they can reach the point where they are also able to acknowledge the pain of adoptees.

My daughter just asked me "what's wrong mum" and it must have shown how I felt after reading some pretty cruel and libel statements about birth mums last Friday.
Long before my daughter was born I lost my first baby to forced adoptions and I was isolated and abandoned by many friends and family prior and after, and wanted to be alone as well.
It was all too much for me, I was lost.
Last Friday's reading Indy lingered all weekend depsite me knowing never to take on negative barbs. as they all feed the negative people.
The heart doesn't always follow the head.
It was that the adoptees who wrote their statements here were injuring me again, further, they did.
I take this to my two professionals and we'll see how to work this out this coming week.
Just when my daughter needed me to be chirpy and alive for her I felt as if the old world was back again. I hid this well I thin from how she is with me.
Here come the ones who put me, and others in similar circumstances, down, want me to be alienated and oppressed as well as suppressed again.
I just now didn't tell my daughter I'd been at the computer reading about adoption prior to the weekend as she always tells me "don't let your self be hurt anymore by that".
I said "I'm fine", realising my daughter is going through her own major life challenges. How could I tell her anything else.
She's a priority, doesn't need to know how I really feel at this time.
I get too saddened by the cruel people of the world.
I'm now focusing on the several who deeply care for me and they're right beside me, that doesn't mean I won't talk this out thoroughly with professionals and take the statements I read along with me.
My injusry was beginning to heal a bit and then whammo.
Who thinks like that and why hurt the injured more.
Jackboots are out of style.
Birth Mum and family person

An adoptee writes " .... at least the mums had some choices" and this is false/totally untrue.
If they were 16years old the parents of the prenant girls made sure they had no choices and made the choice of adoption for their daughters.
I know several of these women today.
Others that age had authorities make those choices of the birth parents losing their babies to adoption.
The signed consent forms hardly meant anything logically, reasonably, yet they did in reality as the mums who wanted to love and nurture their babies (the many thousands one adoptee calls "the nosiy ones")lost them under the most vile circumstances.
I'm further convinced Forced adoptions were violence against girls and women.
Good luck with the Report and your now valued lives to all affected.
Thanks
Spencer

I've met too many birth mothers in particular who have been not only banished from their families of origin years ago, also slandered in the mean time again and again.
I've witnessed these individually happening.
One woman told how she was a bad woman for letting others take her baby.
All I've seen and heard from being a witness has shown me there is still negative discrimination against these birth mums and the latest on this site shows it clearly.
The birth mums were openly shamed, defamed, slandered and every one I know had done nothing wrong except be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or trusted a grown man when she was too young and had rather not, when they were guileless and without support.
Full support today and from here on for reparations for these women who deserve their compensations and apologies.
They are really decent women who care, the ones I know, and there's quite a few.
What they've been subjected to for so long is disgraceful.
Mel

My family and I have been following forced adoptions since the Senate Inquiry begun by the Greens Rachel Siewert.
I'm ashamed to say I have no faith in the religious corporations, churchs and all the Australian governments for allowing these to ever exist.
My family, colleagues and friends all think financial compensation should be given by the governments to all the mothers who lost what is considered the most profound traumatic experience of anybody's life.
The discrimination, defamation, slander, libel and horrendous abuse of these women's human rights and justice have lead to them suffering too long because they were merely unwed and pregnant.
This is repugnant.
We stand for full tangible justice for these mothers.
Livermoore

No-one in their right mind would deny that the mums have suffered, given the amount of evidence and horrific stories that, although all individual, have a terrible consistency that cannot be ignored. I get very frustrated with people aiming hateful words at the mums, and I also get frustrated with people demeaning the adoptees. This is lateral violence and profoundly misplaced. Someone recently said very flippantly about how the "adoptees have issues." Damn right we do. Some of us were not so "lucky" as others and were sent to abusive and neglectful adopters because someone randomly decided it was for our "best interests." To rub it in, we were told that our own mothers did not want us, and that we should be grateful regardless of how we were treated. When some were brave enough to try to reach out to their families of origin, they experienced rejection all over again. So yeh...some of us DO have issues. However, most of us still function in society, are kind and loving (who could be more beautiful than Angela Barra?), hold down jobs, pay our taxes and run families and households. We are not a pathology or a statistic but yes alot of us are very hurt. If you are not an adoptee and you have not gone through this, you have absolutely no idea how it feels. If the people who perpretrated these unforgivable human rights abuses now have us all fighting against each other, they have won.

The only time anyone should ever look down on anyone else is when that person has fallen on the ground.
The birth mums have been looked down for as long as I remember.
That's intolerable.
I'm not happy with every thing the Greens do, never, but they got it right by beginning [If it's true] the Senate Inquiry into Forced Adoptions.
The birth mums don't need any furtherlooking down at, they need apologies all round and monetary compensations.

I've worked out why the Salvation Army written in SMH news about two birth mums, have not apologised.
It's their badness, their sadness.
They are in bed with the commonwealth, all Australian and other governments.
See what they're being asked to do by the present Aus government for another social cause.
It's history repeating just different targets and totally sick.
The government fobs off to these distorted do-gooders what it's meant to do itself. No wonder no public apology from Salvos for Forced Adoptions.
They lose further credibility whilst the people who sincerely care gain influence, personal power and credibility.

My partner and I are all for the Report being properly and fully implemented.
We love kids just don't have any, not yet. It's from observations we've realised what terrible pains birth mums go through.
With grief as a birth mum must feel my partner and I are with whatever support we can give here.

Farrell