Senate inquiry into forced adoptions found barbaric, horrific abuses

Farrell again:

The only time anybody should look down on anbody else is when another has fallen down and they need lifting up, if some persons don't get that, and one of my friends didn't until I explained. We're not that close for this very reason.

Best to all who've been aimed at unjustly even if it's a while ago, they now need justice served and the perpetrators have a moral duty to admit fault.

Peace, apologies, compensations and comfort for those who were unjustly aimed at, minimal ask, they need more.

This is strange that the news is now very vacant about forced adoptions.
As if the Report has been tabled and there's some apology from NSW government this month, as promised, and that's about it for this social cause.
I'm all fort what Farrell has written except I think the perpetrators fall into the category of ugly not just bad.
Who in their right mind would take a baby away from a woman just because she wasn't married.
When did anyone get the gall to emotionally and physically abuse mothers of tiny babies.
This whole social thingy is too overwhelming for me and everyone who thinks it couldn't or isn't happening again needs to have a look at what all the governments and church corporations are doing.
When politics, power and econmics are so enmeshed there is evil.
Forced adoptions were evil ugly and didn't ever have to happen like they did.
Those who look down on anyone end up being looked down on I reckon, even if they don't get it and never will.
Peta Simmons

I remember meeting one of the mothers from forced adoptions who'd suffered so much she had to stop paid work. She was always working and without payment.
It was heart wrenching seeing people abuse her kindness and compassion.
She has lost not only her son also lots of jobs because of bully's again and lot of self esteem.
People have been cruel and rejecting toward her enough to cause her what sounds like severe emotional damage and has been confirmed as this.
Shes a wonderful woman, totally unable to make what we all take for granted, life affirming decisions very lost in many ways though highly intelligent and a gifted one.
A lot of flack has been given to her when she's been right and her employers were bully's and wrong.
This started when she lost her first child to forced adoptions. That's another story about the work she tried to get to keep that baby.
For people like this there's definite necessity for compensations from governments.
Apologies cant give their lost opportunities back to them let alone their children taken by coercion.
This should have been brought up in news media looked at as well when it was first brought to the attention as a social injustice.
Some have foresight others lack that's bytes of the forced adoption tragedy.
They may have foresights all clarity and still go unheard because of people's biased rigid black white mind sets and in the end they are heard loud and clear still disadvantaged. How come.
This is a social injustice that affected many Australian mothers, the fathers that admitted paternity and their babies.
Those who are having difficulty with life today because of this have every right to compensation justice.
They have every right to legal redress if the government denies them a better livlihood than living in the badlands. They were not bad when they had their babies taken from them, quite the contrary from the one I know. I've never known a better and more amazing mother than this woman was when I knew her.
I hope she's doing better this time round than when I last heard.
For those like her there has to be compensation.
We dont selfishly turn a blind eye to what people have taken off others in monetary or personal terms no way.
Im concerned about this and want to hear more good news stories for these.
Axel

I came to this sight because I have an interest in this news.
It's wrong to say there's been no news as Indy has a lot.
True enough mainstream news media is "vacant" at the moment, or as usual.

I watched as my teenage daughter was bullied again and again for being different. I did what a decent parent had to do to make this go away.
She wasn't sick, she wasn't bad, she wasn't wrong she was targeted because she was not usual.
Bullies choose their targets not because they are victims but because they are just that targets.
Bullies like target practice.

When a teenager is different or unusual and pregnant I gather that difference is that s/he is sensitive.
A lot of people are talking about empathy and how it was missing with forced adoptions, so was sensitivity.
As if the insensitive were then, and are now the norm.

What a mess of a world if this continues that we raise the insensitive bullies whilst allowing torture of the sensitive teenagers and real adults, the ones who have empathy [in touch with their feelings].

Mainstream news media and entertainment industries rave a lot about bullying to do with children and not enough about teenage and adult bullying. It's just as relevant.
It's also widespread.
The number of people I know whove been displaced because they were bullied one time too many is astounding.
With forced adoptions it's very relevant.
The time has come to consider these bullies as very serious hate-mongerers who need to be challenged and confronted.

It's not about judging the bully personally it's about judging their conduct or behaviour, their destructive deeds that have affected masses.

I've studied anti bullying after several reasons forced me to, and come to the conclusion the severity of bullying and particularly bullying of the sensitive, what insensitive think are different, unusual has to be looked at with forced adoptions.
There were too many teenagers who suffered these, I'd go so far as to say they were mostly teenagers.
The mainstream news media has given the public the older ones more exposure than the teenagers.

I give credit to news media and professionals who're involved in process opening up about the rampant teenage and adult bullying that occured when forced adoptions happened, as well as what is going on today. It's tragic and not creative in any way.

There's a big difference between anger and anguish at injustices that's healthy and insensitive anger and hate discrimination that's put on the different, no matter what these differences are. We're all meant to be different.
No one os us the same is truth.
Some have herd mentality and don't question anything or anyone. A lot of polls tend to hear their voices or that's how it appears.

With forced adoptions it was they were unwed/different and in highly sensitive head spaces. taget them was the bullies ploy, it destroyed a lot of lives I now see.
There's a lot of far right wing religious extremist in on this who can't own their own and project it onto others.
After all, look around at realities and sales of christening robes, rings, wedding dresses/suits and church cultures generally, their costly events. There has to be something more than $$$$$ to these people yet it seems like that's what church corporations are into and only.

The churchs who claim christianity or sincere spirituality in this country have to walk the talk. The governments who claim responsible government have to walk the talk.
They also need to listen a whole lot more to what every Australian is saying, the questions we're asking, listen to anybody who has a voice for self and advocates for others, speaks up.
I'm speaking up and out about ways and means of ridding destructive bullying of teenagers and adults as well as children.
I can't make this world less messy than what it is I can have a say here, hope it's heard by the right people.
Being the mother of one daughter who was bullied as a teenager affected my daughter, my self and our whole families.
Bullying on the scale it's got to, any scale, can be stopped
Thanks
Concerned

There's no win for the perpetraters of human rights abuses, or professionals who abused their positions of care and trust.
The Report clearly reads the biological mothers, fathers, adoptees and their families suffered and still suffer.
The government have made that clear in the Report.
The only ones fighting are those who seek to fight against their own and that's uncivil.
I've noticed there's more adoptees venting toward their mums than the other way around.
One has said she has issues, it might be a he?
What most people do with really traumatic losses is take it to a good professional therapist and vent it safely so it's not hurting the other targets, anyone.
They also show by doing this they own their own emotional garbage and have problems they want sorted.
I admire these people. It takes a lot of courage to go to therapy.
They often come out with the wisest knowing and give back to society what they've unearthed through hefty lengthy emotional hard work.
We know adoptees were all not like the Wiggles man who somehow got out of his background and now cheers kids.
We all know biological mums are not all the same and some have to introspect and go to therapy. I haven't personally heard any of them put their adopted ones down not ever.
Having met more adoptees and biological mothers than I can count I suggest there's no fight going on except in individual people's minds.
There's no crossfire as I can see as can my professional colleagues everyone affected by forced adoptions has issues.
It's whether they individually choose to do something about these.
The recent Inquiry was a start to National awareness of forced adoptions. It will take time for a lot to lose, if they ever do, their particular discriminations against the biological mothers or many of the adoptees.

The adoptive parents could start talking and tell how they've been betrayed, they appear to remain silent about their losses or sufferings.

It's slander to once again demean and diminish the biological mothers and their pains. They're found to be real. (I couldn't knock my biological mother even if I were given a gold mine.)
Dr. Geoff Rickarby wrote about forced adoptions and all parties in his first submission You can find it on Google Dr. Rickarby Senate Inquiry into forced adoptions (Submission excerpts).

Perpetraters of social injustices as huge as forced adoptions never have any wins. Bully's always end up being shown as being bully's.
They can run, hide and pretend things never happened, ultimately they are shown for what they did to what I perceive as very vulnerable people.

Thanks
Carl

"Adoption practice works on the premise that in order to save the child you must first destroy her or his mother" by Dian Wellfare (Deceased birth mother).
Who would want to further destroy their birth mothers by rubbishing what they have done to raise this tragic social injustice. It started with one or two voices from birth mums who had done the hard work, and lead to many speaking out about what was their out of their control fates.
We notice no adoptees fought hard and long to have any inquiry happen about forced adoptions.
It was the birth mothers, half or wholely destroyed by losses which are by their very nature very profoundly traumatic and last lifetimes, who instigated the eventual Senate Inquiry and then the Report that followed.
If any adoptees want to rubbish their birth mums they would gain more and not lose any more by taking this to specilist counselors.
Best not to coninue the pattern of destroying the birth mums. Vetoes out on you or not. There are restraints on this. The law is there until it is reformed.
I found it uneasy to write this as didn't want to dignify some of the emotionally abusive things some adoptees are giving their and others birth mums.
My own birth mother is admirable for what she has gone through, almost stoicly, contributing in constructive ways to try to abolish the tragedies forced adoptions have caused. She was on the verge of death too young very recently, I am pleased to say she has got a whole lot better, not out of this trauma completely, if ever.
Dian wellfare did die young after being scorned by her adopted child and never wanted anything from that one except to say you were loved so much, weren't given away, you were taken away without my conscious consent when I loved you for so long.
Adopted at birth/Anthony

It's interesting to say the least how adoptees are rising and having a say about their particular views and some of their stories about forced adoptions.
What's more interesting is it clearly shows for these adoptees In the best interests of the Child re. adoption is a nonsense.
I always thought it was.
It's only a suggestion however adoptees could have their own websites and support groups like the birth mothers do, to set the record straight more.
I don't think demeaning the birth mums helps anyone heal, the opposite for them. That kind of commentary is out of line.
I do think the stories of the adoptees are in need of knowing though the adoptees who have said anything on Indy haven't said what was done wrong to them, what injustices they suffered or now suffer.
It wasn't in the best interests of anyone forced adoptions other than the recipients of a wanted child it now becomes apparent.
I know this may not be true for everybody.
Some adoptive families were and are doing well.

Good luck to all who have needs for healing to recover as much as is possible from the tragedies of forced adoptions.
I support you individually and have empathy for anybody whose been through those kinds of tragic traumatic losses.
I know a lot about other kinds of losses this one seems above and beyond the kinds I know of.
Regards
Ray

I was adopted during the baby scoop era.
I've met my bio. mum and things were tough to begin with now good.
Read about the mum who can't make decisions and want to talk about this.
Decisions making can be extremely difficult if one of your earliest major coerced decisions ended in tragedy as forced adoptions is.
The cure I found through trying again and again with a tragedy I suffered was to make small ones small decisions only until you are ready to make other crucial ones and to let all your supports be helpful without controlling you in any way.
My mum and I meeting was not the tragedy by the way.
I lost my friend after he went to Afghanistan and it's taken a toll on me and his family.
There is some kind of link between forced adoptions and war.
I haven't answers for this one.
I can question why we're at war at all with anyone and any country.
Australia is not a very nice place at the moment with it's conduct toward a lot of things and people.
Good luck to the birth mum with decision making and you'll get there, I have it just took time.
Denis

As an adoptee, I feel like my identity is in fragments. Every time I look in the mirror, I see aspects of my real parents - people I cannot know. I feel abandoned and unwanted. I feel hurt that my grandparents made no effort to support my mother to keep me, and do not acknowledge me. I feel sad that I can't research my family tree and can never look at old photographs of my own family. It hurts to feel like a second class citizen, that I have to provide extra documents to get a passport, that my adoptee status is not even acknowledged in the census. I hate living a lie - having this name that isn't real, a birth certificate that is a fraud and having to pretend I was born to people that aren't my real parents. I just wish I could be a part of my real family but it won't happen. Adoption permanently severed the link between us. I'm seen as belonging to somebody else. I hate feeling like a piece of property. I constantly feel loss, of my mother, father, siblings and all the relatives I will never meet. Every birthday, christmas, mothers' day and fathers' day I cry.

The NSW government are today at 10.30 at Parliament House Sydney issuing a State Apology to forced adoptions targets.
They are calling them "victims" rather than targets.
They have not spread the word about this Parliament Apology so the numbers who attend will not be representative of those who sincerely care about receiving "We ask your forgiveness" if it's in any way worded this right way.
Sad to see how the news media always neglects to advertise what matters in a timely way so more can be attending what more have put a lot of hard work into and who have cared about this social injustice for a very long time.
That NSW government has finally conceded an apology to the targets of forced adoptions does count.
It's not enough, and I look forward to hearing what the actual transcript of that apology is (is it sincere or not?) as am one of very many who had no idea it was even happening today let alone you had to register your "interest" to attend. Where was the news media on this?
The ways of the NSW government are short with advertising important events, this is yet again another example.
Where was this advertised in mainstream news media, and how many would have no time to postpone their regular duties to attend what they have been given very limited time to know about, and if they so choose attend as they would like.
How many people were alerted or allowed in this loop to enable them to attend this long time coming Apology?
ABC announced the apology today 20th September 2012, the very day at 10.30 the Parliament Apology is happening.
NSW had the laregest number of forced adoptions in Australia and this has not been covered as it should have been in mainstream news media either.
There are always questions when any governments neglect to inform the public of what's going on and when for their possible benefit rather than the governments own agendas.
A few significant people will not be attending because they were prior not informed, except that the apology would happen in September 2012.
The Registry to attend wasn't well known to many let alone the actual time, day and place.
Not good enough
Birth mother and family

The NSW Parliament Apology to all affected by forced adoptions held today 20/09/2012 was very good.
All the MP's and others who spoke were sensitive, clear and sounded very sincere and compassionate.

When governments do good things it's important we recognise this, uphold this, as there is lots of focus on the other and not always enough on this.
This doesn't mean we stop questioning when questions need to be asked of our governments.

Thank you all for the Apology for NSW Forced Adoptions, today.

One Voice

NSW Parliament gave an apology to targets and their families of forced adoptions this week on Thursday.
That's a start to at the very least acknowledging this governments past wrongs.
Actions speak more than words, now it's time to heal the damaged, displaced or those whoce been disabled because of forced adoptions and it's repercussions.

On another note the childesh bickering between two support group leaders is just that, inappropriate and uncalled for.
That's why so many I know affected by forced adoptions have never joined a support group run by targets, or a taget.
Lily Arther and Christine Cole you are playing at ego-competition, it's pathetic, taking away from the seriousness and inclusiveness of all the targets of forced adoptions. You are neither bigger or smaller than any of the targets, as your adolescent behaviour has now shown. Stop the bickering it doesn;t give your groups any credibility at all.

This site has read about bully, they like to get maximumm attention and love bickering.
We've had enough of this in our lives and don't want to know who thinks whose better than who or who had more influence than who when we know the truth of how this all began.
Forced adoptions was properly raised because of individuals and then collectively, however never by any one leader of a support group where neither has had any lengthy counselling or learnt to curb bickering and oneupmanship.
Sad reflection of these groups, little wonder none I know affected by forced adoptions are aligned with any so called forced adoption support groups.

We were touched by the NSW apology, we were impressed with it's sentiments, now we want the follow through in a non coercive, non-generic manner that respects each and every individual target of forced adoptions.

Bobby and Shirley

I've just been notified via email by two birth mums who would have loved to attend the NSW Parliament Apology.
They are angry they had no idea it was on.
What's happened here is the same as when the first inkling of a Senate Inquiry and submissions asked for was going on.
There was little advertising then too.
How many missed out of that because of news not given to the citizens.
This blog has more info. and popped up to alert the submissions invites, after there was known lack of publicity.
What went wrong with the non existent announcement of the NSW apology we have no idea but suspect it wasn't covered as that's how the governments or others with special interests in quieting these tragedies wanted it to be.
I would've attended that apology just didn't get the details until too late.
Mainstream news has an obligation to let the citizens of Australia know whats going on and when.
I'm more likely to read independent news now after this.
Red

I was hurting reading about the NSW apology.
So hurt I wanted to go far away and not think about forced adoptions.
I understand it was very sensitive and forced adoptions is so very complex and even with this I need to know there's hope.
That hope is about healing from the pain of loss of a very loved one.
I want to know that hope because the pain is very deep, and if others have been able to suffer losses and progress I want to bring in that hope more can.
One doctor I know told me "You can overcome pain when you stop nurturing the pain" and after that I thought that's it.
When adoption is forced the mother feels pain instead of what is natural and normal when anyone's baby is born, nurturing feelings, loving hearts and arms holding their babies tiny forms.
I'm hoping the powers that be see how counselling and funds put into health are now a very high priority.
Wasted lives, dysfunctional lives, disabled lives or lives lived solely in pain do not lift any societies ante.
I want to bring in the idea that pain of loss of a dearly beloved can be erased without extreme measures, with time and the right counseling and not least support from other loved ones.
As I write this someone I cherish is losing a loved one and that is hurting me too. I'm aware I'm in a position to put a lot of pain aside for this one, as I'm this persons parent, it's not easy as I have lost a loved baby too.
I went to church, I never go to church, and prayed until the feelings of helplessness almost left me.
They haven't gone completely I'm going to pray again and again for my loved one who is losing one of their loved ones.
Forced adoptions raises a lot about health issues that all the governments have to finally admit is a national necessity, and not an economic burden, not in the long run.
As with forced adoptions, prevention is better than cure, it's too sad forced adoptions ever happened, they should never happen again.
The NSW apology was very sensitive and also painful.
I maybe care too much for too many and spread that care too thin, that's to do with guilt that others imposed on me and I'm looking at my self in reference to this.
I think the guiltmongerers of yesterday have a lot of apologising to do to the targets of forced adoptions.
The corporations affiliated with strange ideas of religious
double messages need to apologise especially when they were meant to care, not harm, their patients.
Thanks Indy

I've found a lot of truthful things here.
One thing I know from three women who are struggling with forced adoptions is counseling is a must have.
Not short term either, that never works I know.
You don't go through what the Tele. Herald and all this site have comments on without needing that objective professional to help you heal.
I think the pain can go away to an extent and that has to be worked on. It takes years.
So did the last most public and most raised about forced adoptions Inquiry.
The three I know have a lot of pain like Lyn at the NSW apology described and they're working on cognitive therapy, at least two are, another is doing a therapy where you talk and listen and unravel the past so you can be here without as much anguish.
All my best wishes go to the many affected by forced adoptions
II'd like to see a compensation package rather than some ludicrous national framework that has a lot of bucks going to bureacrats and none to the victims.
Georgie
Lindfield NSW

Olivia Newton-John has a mental illness.
Glyneth Paltrow suffers from Depression.
Pat Cash suffers from Depression as well.
The way a lot of politicians write about "the very sick" and sideline these into the "mentally" sick and the "other kind" is pathetic.
They should have their heads read before they label.
Being a politician doesn't exempt them from maladies of the psyche or profound trauma. They don't know their future.

Whatever happens forced adoptions victims I'd advise you never take on any label given you remembering Winston Churchill had the Black Dog-Depression and so do more than will admit.
If your a housewife or mother so not giving to the GDP don't worry you're doing your work as it's recognized by those who count.
Money has become this countries preoccupation as we have the wealthiest woman in the world mingling with governments and corporations. The government thinks in economics at the cost of health, and this includes mental health of it's own politicians.
Wealth is good. Greed that took babies away from their biological mothers is vile.

If you have reactive depression that comes from induced (coerced) very profound trauma it's not your label that matters it's you, again, you're with abilities and how. Don;t let anybody dampen your spirits with any covert or overt discrimination.
It's unlawful, besides, though Politicians do it regularly in newsletters and all over the place.
p.t.s.d. is not generic so everybody that suffers this has different personalities and symptoms, the label is not the individual you.
Don't let anybody start acting as if they (or you) are totally out of your (or their) loop because everybody is to a lesser or greater degree "mentally Ill" mainly because of the present emphasise on all and anything except human empathy. That's why forced adoptions, all social wrongs happen, that one human element which people with depression often have lots of is missing with perpetrators of the most heinous social injustices.

Good luck with your recoveries with the very best analysts you can find.
It's a searching process, worth the search as some are just not right for the individual you are, each of you.
You're not victims as they keep calling you, you were targeted and to my colleagues, families and my mind unconscionably.
I'm doing an essay on this and what I've found is terrible.
Psych. Post Grad.
Musician
Husband and Father

I'm not the only one saying this the forced adoptions targets deserved an apology from all who mistreated them.
It's a late time coming apology from the NSW government who implement a lot of inhuman actions in their human services branch.
The apology was compassionate that doesn't stop that it also reignited the trauma, sadness and tragedy of my forced adoption as a birth mum.
We all deserved this apology a long time ago.
What's sorry when it's taken this long to eventuate.
I'm in pain which will take more than an apology to get over the profound trauma of what I experienced at the hands of mercenaries and hateful people who didnt care then maybe dont or wont ever care except for themselves.
There's no self pity my life is in good hands Im saying the NSW apology is way too late for the extent and time of what happened.
Im middle aged now with an adopted child out there who wasn't wanted by her father or by any of my original family or friends let alone with government care or responsibility over churchs that wield far too much influence over governments.
Thats a large one how to stop these mega greedy churchs having great influence over government policies and practices.
A late coming apology better than none, that's about it.
All forced adoption mums, dads that wanted to be dads and their lost children deserve a whole lot more.
Des

I write to fully, actively support my close friend who lost a baby by forced adoption.
While with some air time I think it's necessary all friends stand by their loved ones when there's a grief like this, or any wrong so tragic.
For this reason, although I'm not a friend of Julian Assange I fully support what he's said on air today.
That man is one heck of a champion for social justice on a scale no said 'leader' goes to.
The blood money for our soldiers in Afghanistan as mothers lose their babies and children.
Thye blood money governments, churchs, corporations took from forced adoptions what's the difference, it's all blood money.
The greed that makes this happen now exposed leaves a lot for our Prime Minister to check out and more for the USA and UK.
With forced adoption my friend has a lot of social networking happening.
We're all there for her no matter what.
On an international level we're all fighting for Julian Assange and what we heard him say today about deeds instead of useless words.
Deeds count not rhetoric without constructive deeds than humanize our international societies.
Don't go for the blood money any more. It's not worth it.
Words are just words, start doing civil human deeds guys or you'll lose every election along with your own self centred perceived power ultimately.
Forced adoptions was against humanity. I stand by my loved ones doing good for them where I can and always will.
Anthony

That's all there is to say.
Walk the talk and show by example you are going to heal these targets and not leave this any longer.
From my observations of birth mothers and I've observed a lot they're with self respect and now ask for others to give them that same thing, respect by acts of reparations.
Ones that don't cause further damage, ones that heal.

Brother of birth Mum whose really a good sister and mum.

Croydon

Just want to say I liked "Let no one dampen your spirits by discrimination".
I read a lot of what politicians write always thinking who the hell are they to pidgeon hole so many when they can't look in their own mirror.
They don't know much about themselves these politicians.
That's really tricky as theyre meant to lead and be with self knowledge isnt anyone who leads with this.
Maybe their job description stops them having empathy to.
Whatever, discrimination was wrong when forced adoptions happened is wrong at this or any time.
I have to say to, replacing one stigma with another is tragic. Mental illnes None of the birth mums who feel are psychotic. The perpetrators of what happened to them might be they appear to have a lot missing in the way of real empathy charity and love.
Who wouldn't be suffering if they'd have had forced adoption of their babies happen to them its abnormal losses and tragic ones.
Best not to make this forced adoptions about getting rid of one damaging stigma whilst replacing it with another.
Thankyou
L4D

I can see the correlation with social injustices and their magnitude and differences.
What I know being a birth dad is forced adoptions fits into it's own specific social injustice.
The NSW apology sounds sincere where's the actions with equal sincerity and goodwill.
There have to be positives coming out of this social injustice now exposed internationally.

By the way with Assange and all who care about him it's Bob Carr who is saying nothing and doing nothing there.
Write to him about your real concerns.
He's the Minister who will pay a price for his complicity in any wrongs done to Assange.

Don't get the two seperate social injustices muddled up except that they rightly are social injustices.

Gareth

A birthing mother I know well has been to several professionals for therapy to recover from her prolonged and aggravated grief. Each one either went away to another country or retired, abrupt therapy is pretty grievous in and of itself.
That grief was precipitated by her being forced to adopt her newborn under what I consider torture conditions including staff.
Apologies arent enough, they're a beginning. Too long overdue.
The national Australian apology does have to be made the way this government is procrastinating time with this is a national disgrace.
The targets (not victims) of forced adoptions require a national apology post haste for any beginnings of healing to happen.
The other people who were in on all this also need to make their public apologies pronto.
I'm heartbroken by the way too many concerned were and still are inept, unjust and hostile toward even basic apologising.

Rebecca
Social Psych.

As a party to forced adoptions I suggest what follows.
Where there are birth mothers who have been destroyed and that destruction has lead to their disadvantage heavily, only programs that lift their self esteem and are non coercive will have any effect.
I suggest further counseling imperative and with the right fit for the individual birth mother.
I read about the one who had several and they all went away and suggest committment is a two way thing, and if any counselor cannot cimmit to see through a patients recovery he or she should choose another profession.
People's minds are not play things and it's offended me to hear this one woman has had to go from one to another in an attempt to heal her own experience of forced adoptions.
I suggest further Commonwealth Rehabilitation Program should'nt be there to simply and brutally throw these birth mothers into employment that may or may not be suitable for them individually, but as the name implies a "rehabilition" program for these birth mothers or anybody who attends there.
The Committment should be two way, and nothing less.
When these birth mothers signed one horrendous piece of paper they had no idea of the consequences so I suggest the CRP and any national or state body recognise how traumatic it is for these women now to sign without absolute full knowledge they are in compassionate, supportive hands and that they know exactly what they are signing for.
I know as being one of this party one of the largest hurdles to getting better is just this.
Bureaucrats asking these birth mothers to sign when that signing is a significant symbol of the most tragic experiences in their lives.
Everybody suffers however from what I've researched these women have had to profoundly suffer in a perpetual silence or when outspoken about the injustice, been given lip service only.
I suggest a national framework is not considerable of the birth mothers or their children unless it maintains a respectful position toward what these people have been through and allow them non generic and non coercive progress.
I don't believe all is lost for those who are said to be destroyed by forced adoptions.
There would be different levels of destructive incurred to the individuals and some may need what others do not.
As WELA have suggested I think counseling by a consistent trustworthy professional is a large need.
Reading Dr. Scott Peck's Book "The Road Less Travelled" that is about therapy, has lead me to believe the wrong rehabilitation or support and counseling can do further damage than none at all.
Forced adoptions is an important injustice that needs to be taken seriously so the individuals involved and their extended families gain benefit which they may with patience and respect from "authority" figures, then put back into society.
I have hope as anybody should for these people.
Where lives have been destroyed or damaged enough to render these people with very little advantage or limited in some ways advantages they have every human right to services that are appropriate and civilised.
A national framework that brings in paid bureaucrats who serve their own agendas only as has happened before with another national framework will do nothing to lift our society nor the people affected by forced adoptions.
We have a health system in Australia that's in crises and this I further suggest needs to be a priority instead of a lesser value as it stands now.
The buildings are being built the staffing is not there.
It's telling that property counts to many more that actual patients or people and abominable.
Very good to have the facilities however the staff have to be there to adequately utilize these buildings and facilities.
I understand the way many are turning away from health work in Australia and going overseas. This is something the governments all need to try and understand why, examine and rectify.
We need healthy health services if we are ever to reclaim any level of individual, collective and national health.
One party

Where I have just written CRP I meant to write CRS, that is Commonwealth Rehabilitation Services.
What I wrote may not all make sense without this error rectified.
Thanks
One party

With all due respect for the various groups representing targets of forced adoptions I can't help think none of these groups treat their peers (those they represent) as individuals.

The only sincere support groups or any group for that natter, who do any good for their clients, peers or those they represent understand respect for individuality is a must.

That was missing with forced adoptions.
The birth mothers were treated like cattle.
The practices all have a generic ring to them.
This cannot be repeated.

If any group leader wants to speak on behalf of anyone he or she represents he or she needs to understand respect for individuality.
No two people are alike in forced adoptions as with any other tragic social injustice.

I'm tired of these groups speaking as though they are representing me when I have no need of their patronising or support and strange way of representing anyone.

I can understand the good they do knowing it's limited as they are not professional therapists or with the worlds wisdom at their gates.
I'm all right with the way theyve stood their ground as individuals have as well.
I can empathise with their plights as I am one of them outside of their groups, in this one way a target of forced adoptions.
This is not anti collective it's about treating people who've suffered from forced adoptions with dignity and humanity as we deserve now.

Birth dad with supports who treat me with individual regards.

It doesn't matter who I am for this except to say I'm aware of forced adoptions to a grade that counts.
What I want to say here is about a man I've been to lunch with who told me this tragedy and more today.
Wallace has a friend whom he doesn't see often.
He told me at lunch he knows this woman who has had a wasted life because of the loss of her one and only baby via forced adoptions.
The woman initially attended a private school where she was ignorant of sexuality and an example of a bright future.
First abused shamelessly by a man who walked away and left her to her fate of loss of her only baby that would take away all her hope of being of any worth as a person.
[The NSW apology kept coming into my mind listening to Wallace talk, and how they the NSW government had said little about the aloneness of the birth mums and abandonment by the fathers to many who lost to forced adoptions.
My mind questioned why NSW Gov. couldn't somehow have included this in their apology that society then true enough didn't allow the girls [and they were girls a lot of them] to identify the fathers, and also that so many fathers frankly disowned the pregnant "girls".
Just as the churchs did, just as the families of these girls did, just as the "care" professionals did, just as the "human" services did again and again.]
That abandonment, Wallace told me, left the birth mother he's befriended with a life of never forming a long relationship with any man or woman, never having any children ever again and living as he said "wasted" even though she is a true friend of he and his family, not a regular one though for reasons he couldn't expand on.
Wallace told me she had little else and did not engage much with life including he and his wife and two children.
I was in pain listening to what Wallace told me.
That's the harshest side of forced adoptions there is in my mind. Though I know other grades of harshness in this.
I cannot say I find any degree of comfort with forced adoptions knowing that others have at least married or had children. I understand forced adoptions damaged each and every target as I call them.
They all need supportive reparations.

After talking about Wallace's abandoned friend Wallace talked about Julian Assange and how it was inconceivable to believe he Julian raped any women.
He also said he saw Indymedia had some comments about the plight of Assange, his persecution, and how the lack of any compassion for Julian Assange by officials had affected he and his family with natural human concern for one person from others.
Wallace is religious and he said he prays for Assange just as he does for his "wasted" friend and those he knows are treated unjustly.

Forced adoptions is all about lack of compassion.
The way certain officials are neglecting Julian Assange is also.
I am now aware until enough people can summons that emotion and start changing things for the better for
their fellow man, those who can I'm talking about, things wont change for the better. That's further tragedies if not resolved and soon.

What's one wasted life those without compassion would ask, when those with compassion would understand it's one wasted life too many.
What's many devastated lives, wasted in some or many respects.
That's easy to answer it's degradation of humanity.
We've sunk pretty low to get where forced adoptions happened as well as what is happening today regarding human injustices.
We can change this. The public who have compassion can be role models and are.

The targets of forced adoptions need more than compassionate yet not the whole story apologies.
They need to be recognised as unique entities who have just reason to be freed from persecution and pain.

Just as Wallace said and I agree does Julian Assange.

The lunch today was painful as well as learning however I realised life and love is painful, and that's also what was missing and still is with this injustice and that of Julian Assange. That even one persons life matters, let alone everyone's.

I'm asking why so many can believe what they don't know without questioning and compassion and asking more questions with compassion.
That's what happened when forced adoptions happened.
That's what is happening with Julian Assange.
I'll be asking Wallace more questions and I'll also be listening to whatever he tells me about his life's wisdom and compassion as I did today.

Life is for everyone unendurable without hope, without compassion, it seems a lot of people don't understand this.
I'm asking why and when will this change.
I can change my self and grow further with compassion.
Wallace can.
Everyone I know is and can.
Pains and tragedies looked at and with compassion for self as well as others can be lifted when there are enough compassionate people standing up and speaking out about any injutsices.

Who doesn't want to not only better themselves their deeds and others along their lives. It seems to me at the moment not enough. The climate has to change, compassion has to be an active alive emotion.

No one deserves to be "wasted" by reason of inhumanity.
I now know why the depression clinics are full up.
However, compassion is coming into it's own and I am only interested in progress where there is compassion.

Thanks Indy

When I was in confinement for forced adoption I was given no foods in a time frame of 14 days.
With one exception a piece of fruit cake on Christmas day.
This was at Salvation Army's Bethesda, and it has affected a lot of my resolution and life ever since.

The UN Convention draws to the attention of everyone this as well as much more.

Article 12 - 2.
Parties shall ensure to women (and girls included) appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and post-natal period, granting free services where necessary during pregnancy, lactation, as well as adequate nutrition.

I had one time visitor from my mother whereby she delivered me a hamburger as I requested.
I didn;t usually eat hamburgers it's that they reminded me of my aut and uncle who made these for me when I used to visit and they cared, even as they didn't know about my pregnancy, weren't allowed to know about it.

I found this also.

"There is international recognition women bear the brunt of modern conflicts. Specific threats to them must be stopped."
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

I'm not one to see women as suffering more or less than men do, nor to look at women and men in any generic way, however it's evident from my experience that to obtain the signature they wanted from me the staff who were meant to care for me, and I was a private patient, were cruel enough to know they could only gain that signature if I were weakened to the extent of not even basic nutrition for my self let alone my baby.

The legacy of that first experience of malnutrition is I have trouble eating today, have always had trouble eating, though I choose healthy foods every time when I can eat.

If that wasn't a form of violence against women or a form of torture then was is.
I need to get over this as everyone tells me though it just doesn't go away.

Sorry's seem like pitiful peanuts when you realise you've been devalued as well as denied very basics when in terrible circumstances, and lived with that in secret for a long time.
I finally opened up about all this, first with a trusted friend who would become a support person I am indebted too.

I remain anon as am actively looking at forced adoptions and being advised to be anon.

I went to have a positive input on this subject and found a whole lot of encrytion or however you write that and it's turned me off writely freely about this or any other subject on Indymedia.
Might be worth finding out what this is all about if you think there's some bugging of your systems.
I can't write anything with unknown messages on top in pink over the header of forced adoptions.
This is like writing under servaillance and very odd.

I hope what I write here is helpful to some or many who are struggling with the realities of being brutalised by systems and laws that werent, as I know them, very well regulated or were placed in care-less hands.

My friend and I watched a movie entitled "The Reader" last night.
I found, as a birth mother, further understanding of adolescence and the way this time for many, as I know it, again, is vulnerable and deeply impressionable.
The movie showed me a lot about mis-use or more so total abhorrent abuse of power and control.
The protagonist [one of two] an illiterate woman and it is set in differing time frames as was forced adoptions in Germany.

The movie "The Reader" tells the audience how adolescent boys as well as adolescent girls may carry deeply lasting and affecting impressions for a long time if they've been abused by someone in a more powerful position. In the case of this movie it's not a judgemental thing to say it was the illiterate woman in her thirties who was the abuser of a very impressionable young 15year old boy.

I know abhorrent power abuse first from being a 15 year old adolescent girl when I was being abused by someone older, someone who wanted to control/have power over me, several people in fact.
The cycle and effects of that abuse was to eventually, after quite some years, send me hurtling to therapy and lengthy examining of self and others toward understanding of self as well as those who seek to have indecent control and power over others, and their counterbalance, those who have kind hearts and sincerely care with compassion and empathy. These are my social capital and are in all walks of life, to my gratitude.

I can recommend this movie to anyone as a birth mother who lost in forced adoptions who thinks deeply.
Anyone who is struggling to find themselves, as I still am, and cannot as yet see this is not all about women and girls alone being victims or targets of tragic abuse.

I've never been able to draw parrallels with Auchwitz and forced adoptions until now, after seeing this movie.

I sincerely trust and hope all in positions of power have a serious look at Auchwitz and deeply, to understand what can never happen again, and what would not have happened except for people accepting the unacceptable and not understanding below the surface of social circumstances, including the times in definitely caring compassionate people's lives when impressions form a lasting and very painful legacy, adolescence.

I would also like to see, as the government has recommended, the perpetrators being accountable, admitting their errors, when they have tragically harmed or destroyed anyone in forced adoptions.
Openly I admit although we're all flawed I can't and won't mingle with nor respect anyone who has need to control adversely and indecently or horrendously, or use power
adversely, indecently or horrendously over others, to anyones (absolutely anyone's) destruction, damage or death.

Losing an infant to forced (what I call coerced) adoption is profoundly tragic, and in order that I did not do as was done to me, though I had no inclination that way I'm advised, apparently I'm with a gift of empathy, I had to go to therapy, and still do.

"The Reader" is for the mindful who have the courage to see how valuable one life is let alone all lives.
Movies never show whole realities due to the art forms they are, they certainly can show depths of humanity and also inhumanity to educate and raise one's consciousness.

Both genders can and have been abused tragically by those who ultimately need salvation.
The targets need counselling, I believe.
The perpetrators might only gain salvation if they admit their depth of inhumanity and thereby gain humanity.

In the case of forced adoptions it is my experience of being the abused as a female.
In the case of the male protagonist in the brilliant "The Reader" it is a male.

Possibly this movie may enlighten someone or more to the impressionable time of adolescence and the effects of abuse of power in any form including forced adoptions were and are for certain individuals.

Thank you Indymedia

My colleagues and I have found a strict and disturbing "warning" on top of page, as we each individually go to your site here on Forced Adoptions to read about this social injustice more.

Might we suggest you have contact with the principled
"Electronic Frontiers Australia" about just this, so as many as who want to can submit their ideas and knowledge about forced adoptions.
They are found at https//www.efa.org.au
or www.efa.org.au

Keep up the good work as freedom of speech is not dead in Australia

James

I thought the comments about "actively promoting empathy" were spot on.
All the targets of forced adoptions have every right to empathic reparations today.
It's not the place of anyone to pity any individual or collectve that were damaged by forced adoptions.
Pity doesn't belong it's a contemtous emotion far too often.
The apologies have to be sincere, non-patronising as in with empathy and not pathetic pity.
I'm yet to meet a birth mum or their grown child who ever sought pity from anybody.
They require respect and admiration not pity.
The pioneers who spoke up did so for the groups that followed and for everybody not just themselves alone.
Does that sound like pitiful persons, not.
I never knew what my aunt went through until I read about this flagrantly abusive forced adoptions.
All the best for the targets, justice and compensation to you all

Ben

My only comments are these.
I find forced adoptions one of the most savage and brutal social injustices I've heard about to date.
There can be said there was a different consciousness at those times.
If that were true I'd trust today the consciousness of all has been lifted. Though I don't believe empathy ever just happens in any decade, it's all through all the world in people who care about their families and all they meet or know about.
This was such a hidden social wrong on such a great scale in numbers, my mind is disturbed by this.
I know several well known who have lost this way though they are extremely private citizens of Australia I commend them for their characters.

P Simmons

I can't find any understanding in cruelty.
As a gentle person I don't understand and often wonder what's happening in life today, not only with this forced adoptions with other relevant social injustices.
Violations of human rights are just that, and forced adoptions were clearly this as well as so very cruel, dehumanising, tragic for so many.
This is not a simple topic I understand this.
It's very complex.
The mothers were exploited in cruel ways.
I believe anyone who was responsible for these cruelties has human obligations to make amends.
One thing I've found with several targets of forced adoptions is the mothers who lost their babies often find themselves in positions where others take advantage of their kind hearts, or transfer their problems onto these birthing mums.
This is abominable, and has to cease.
The way forward for the individuals affected this way by others indifference or pleasure in their suffering, or suppression of their valid voices is for all mankind to look at and actively condemn cruelty, whilst also, as others have said, promote empathy, not pity or power abuse.
I'll never be able to understand cruelty as I have learnt of it in my life up until now.
I can redirect my sadness at those who find cruelty some kind of game, into constructive endeavours, and with the support of my loved ones near and far I consciously focus on the positive influences they are, and that come out of very tragic experiences.
There are positives that do come out of tragice events, as I understand this, even as they do not surface as quickly as a lot of society seems to think.
i.e. get over it when someone or others have been cruel and abusive toward you takes time.
They, the cruel, can destroy a lot in a single unwed mother, and others that cruel people abuse, they cannot destroy our souls nor our wills, these are ours and under no power or control of anyone except oneself, and a higher force, whether one believes that's within oneself, or external.

My, this subject is multifaceted, not at all simple, to understand or transcend, depending on where you're positioned.

The person Wallace who mentioned the wasted life of his friend who lost her only baby to forced adoptions, to him I say if the woman is still alive there's hope her life will change, as people can change, do progress, and no one has the right to deny hope for anyone, including Wallace's friend.

I think that hope to the unwed mothers was shattered by cruel people, and this time I think that hope to change and grow, after the effects of that cruel inhumanity, is very possible if the cruel back off from these women and their babies completely.

I like the way Shirley Swain shows such empathy, as others have also, including the politicians on the panel at the Senate Inquiry.

I sincerely wish all the targets of forced adoptions peace, justice and equanimity.

Thank you Indy

I may be a cynic or seen as this but cruelty done to the people in forced adoptions was madness.
I think the person who wrote the commentary about cruelty says a lot more than the words.
We live in a global world now where tolerance of cruelty and vitriolic dialogue has become too endemic.
I'm sad about this as well.
Things can change when enough gentle and otherwise take a stand and voice their objection to things like forced adoptions and all other human rights abuses.

A Holt

My partner and I run a successful company employing people from all walks of life.
We have a mission statement that reads emppathy for our staff and clients is a priority.
One of our employees is openly concerned about the Senate Inquiry and forced adoptions. She is an adoptee.
There is no virtue nor necessity for businessmindedness when that ability causes either injusticesas in forced adoptions, or poverty because of businessmindeds who are ruthless, greedy or have self interes and profits over people, causing hardship to anybody.
Forced adoptions has shown to involve businesses in unethical and unlawful business practices, that have affected large numbers of mothers and their babies.
Our firm does not condone the baby trade, and from our knowledge most people are repelled by such trades.
People are not mere resources for those that have more.
Even as the damages of the baby trade are known businessness with greed as their unwritten logo continue to exploit mothers and their babies or children, indifferent or cruel to thevast numbers of people affected adversely and often lifelong.

Here is a quote we found about Empathy for all who have written about this authentic virtue.

"In soxieties that ebcourage us to compete with each other, compassion is often seen as a weakness. Striving to get ahead, self criticism, fear and hostility towward others seems to come more naturally to many.
Yet researchers have found that developing kindness and compassion for ourselves and others builds our confidence, helps us create meaningful relationships, lowers anxiety and hostility, and promotes physical and mental health."
By Paul Gilbert

Our company stands up for this injustice and recommends the active promotion of authentic empathy and compassion.

Thankyou
Brendan

One has an identity, and one is a teenegar moving forward with what is the foundation of that identity.
One falls pregnant by fair or foul means and one tries to adjust to a new foundation of identity.
Am I a mother? My whole being knows I am and then again I am not as my infant has been taken from me.
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and didn't know about sexuality as I was a fairly protected teenager at an elite school that didn't tutor us in this subject.
It was there I found my self with an infant kicking inside and I lost face, as everyone else was pointing a finger at me.
I lost face and walked around like an embarassed person who had been deeply, painfully humiliated.
Don't misinterpret this.
I was not embarassed for the beloved infant who kicked within, I was embarassed at how I could have not known enough, and was so unaware, and was seperated for how I was, pregnant and alone then.
I had and have so much pride, yet I lost face.
I am writing this because it's clear to me many of the perpetrators of forced adoptions fear they will lose face if they admit their terrible practices.
Yes, they were horrific for my self, and I know now for very many others, I've known this a long time and tried my best to be creative with same.
If the perpetrators think they will lose face and therefore their idenity, they are wrong.
This can and does happen to a teenager who falls pregnant and loses, tragically, to forced adoptions.
Identity shattered, and it's only just begun to emerge as any identity at all, as one is a teenager and so unaware of it all, wanting to understand why adults are so terrible.
This does not happen when adults admit they have been wrong.
That admission of wrong doing actually lifts their identities and they gain respect for showing their humanity.
I can admit I am imperfect, and I would hope the religious and state as well as commonwealth authorities who endorsed the wrong practices that eventuated in forced adoptions can also admit the error of their wrongs imposed when they were, or are, in powerful positions.
One is all of a sudden a mother, and then one is not, and that shock of being in a land of limbo ever seeking to know about one's infant and her or his growing is tragically painful, especially when no one will tell you anything about him or her, and again embarases you when you ask and tells you you are crazy to ask, as you should have gotten over it by now. (for goodness sake, get over it is so insensitive).
Did they all think the mothers were "me" people, when reality is I for one am a "we" person, and not only cared for my lost infant also never ceased to hold a place for this one amd will always, whether there is ongoing rejection on this persons part or not. I also care about my fellow man generally.

Face, losing face, how many people worry about this.
It's a silly worry when you consider how young ones in forced adoptions lost face, were humiliated to the most severe extent, and for no other reason than bias because they were without a ring on their finger and they were/we were mothers with infants, whilst support was a far away place.

For those who have not experienced this it is that you can feel or I did feel like I was really a mother, whilst the rest of the world dominated me, that's how it seemed, and said otherwise, whilst many DID otherwise, that is made me a non-mother.
They won by stealth and deceit, I became a non-mother.
My idetity shaping took a blow and I lost face for a long, long time. Humiliation as this to an innocent and guileless young one is no laughing matter.
The healthy sensitive are aware of this.

If you do destructive things to others and cannot feel any shame there is something wrong at core.
Yet I am hearing dailly about injustices not excluding forced adoptions, whereby man is doing the most tragically cruel things to others and thinks this is all o.k.
That they have face. They have, in reality, already lost face. Like two year olds they cover their eyes and say "You can't see me" when we all can.
To regain it is not as painful as it was for mothers with infants who were humiliated, naked and so vulnerable, literally, and forced to lose infants and face at such vulnerable times and ages. We were embarassed because society said we should be, because we had no wedding ring and no supports, at that time.

Have mercy on those who can't handle a little bit of losing face to face up to the tragedies they are incurring.
Aren't we all here to help make life easier not more difficult for each other?

Maman

Only very mentally disturbed persons reject others, throw them away, torture or murder others.
What excuse do the persons who rejected these unmarried mothers and their babies have?
That's the only question I want to raise, except also,
Whose got the answer to this one?

Last century many children were adopted by Chinese families, Japanese familes, Arabic families, South american families, African families, Indian families, I was adopted by a American indian family & my mother was adopted by a aboriginal family, my brother was adopted by a family from Papua New Guinea.

If you look up "Trouble" in the Oxford University Press Dictionary 1964, 1976 you will find under the word "trouble" several meanings, one of which is "pregnant and unmarried".
The trouble yesterday and today is that an aweful lot of people didn't/don't seem to understand it takes two to create a baby, not just a mother, and there is only trouble with being unmarried and pregnant if you have a bias against this circumstance, or are mean spirited and with an agenda that likes to alienate anyone in vulnerable circumstances.
The trouble with communication continues and is a never ending process of addressing where there are conflicts of interest, or beneficial outcomes for some at the cost of tragedies for others.
I trust the Oxford University Press has updated it's words and meanings from 1964, 1976 to contemporary thinking with human caring.
I have several dictionaries and each has different meanings for same words.
I unforttunately don't have the most uptidate Oxford University Press Dictionary to see if there are comparisons.
Trouble is when people don't care about somebody being pregnant and unmarried, and leave them to any unconscionable fate, in my mind, as in what happened with forced adoptions.
Mel

When America found Frederick Douglass writing about and advocating to abolish slavery there Frederick Douglas showed the world his ethos by firstly and foremost telling all he himself was a slave.

Those who have suffered and suffer through forced adoptions do likewise, they are credible because they know what it's like as have been on the coal face of this massive injustice.

For those who have no birth certificates be they birth mothers or those they gave birth to, there is this comparison, neither did the slaves have any such birth identification when they were slaves.
No birth certificates for slaves.
It helped the slave "owners" and was an intolerable injustice toward the slaves who should never have been.

One man spoke out about this, Frederick Douglass, then collectives. The abolition of slavery eventuated because this man wrote and spoke about the intolerable horror of slavery and made this public, as did his contemporaries.
Albeit there are today still forms of this terrible injustice.

We don't know if slavery happens these days in Australia though we know it did happen here times gone by.
Randomly we here of occasional incidents of this here.

We do know forced adoptions happened in Australia.
We know there are those caught up in this horror who have no birth certificates.
This is terribly intolerable and causes great unhappiness.

We also know the forced adoption ones who have the most rights or ethos to speak out about this, not only suggest remedies, be at the forefront of open discussions about same are the ones who have spent tireless often thankless time and paid close attention to forced adoptions, the targets who have spoken out alone, in teams or collectively.

Opression, abuse, persecution, and all injustices are high priorities to focus on so progress is real, not piecemeal.

Good health and luck to one close relative whose been through forced adoption, most of my family didn't know about until recent times. Good health and luck to all who have suffered this profound trauma, my desire for you all.

Edward

Time ago slaves were taken from their mums at birth.
The mums were powerless as were the babies.
Frederick Douglass was just such a one.
He was taken immediately after birth from his mother and given to business for a slave.

This is associated with forced adoptions in that the mentality is one of "they are unworthy" of family in our traditional and also unconscionable sense.
Shame in the past and shame in the present if the slave masters of adoption masters negate the human worth of mothers and their babies.

The real unworthy fellows are those who do wrongs against their fellow man/woman.
his forced adoptions inflicted a lot of people and was wrong.
If it happens again it will be wrong again and this time with proof.
Wish my family didn't have a friend who has suffered from losing her baby this way, but we do, and it's been hard watching her go through a lot of grief and pain.
Our hearts go out to all the targets.
Our consciences say they perpetraters have to admit their shame.
Lonie

Counselling for the targets of forced adoptions has been recommended.
That's very good, except the counselling needs to be between the individual targets, and therapists who themselves have been through in depth therapy.
There are a lot of counsellors/therapists who've never gone through therapy as part of their training, they would be unable to professionally counsel or give compassion focused therapy to their clients.
These latter are to be avoided, as they too easily project too much of their own "unfinished business" on to their clients.
Counselling is hard to do. It has to hurt before it heals is a truism, and that's how counselling evolves.
The good therapist is astute at active listening and heightened self awareness and other awareness.
The rewards of good counselling which I call therapy are numerous and very good.
If anybody finds a wrong therapist they are free to move on to the right one for them.
Therapy for these targets takes a lot of time and effort on the part of the target, however, enriches their lives in the long run.
What wasn't given in the early days just after these profoubdly tragic losses in forced adoptions, years later takes much longer.
That's why therapy is often associeted with therapy straight after the actual trauma.
It's another tragedy this was never even considered.
As though they could just get on with their lives when they'd lost far too much to merely forget and get on with it.
When time has passed there is that much accumulative trauma to examine in a professional environment with a professional counsellor/therapist.
Thankyou

Appendage:
You don't attend counselling or therapy because you're crazy, you attend because you've had normal responses to very extreme abnormal experiences.
Why pay the price of such tragic losses, whether you're biological mothers or bilological sons/daughters, and not get the goods.
The goods are pyshological,often associated physical and material well-being.
No one is saying grief in the context of forced adoptions makes for a crazed mind. It has and does make for an injured and harmed psyche which needs care and professional expertise to collect those intangible goods.
This may, or may not, lead to successful reunions, however the self will be elevated and that's what good therapy does.
I believe every one would benefit from counselling/therapy.
Too few dare to travel that path, this is sad, yet their numbers are growing, and this is very good.
Thankyou again.
Norm

Good therapy elevates the self, and this elevates the community and the society.
There are more than a few who dare to tread that path, lots are going to therapy and this includes men who usually steer clear of it as in Australia it's not so "in" for "blokes".
Go to L.A. see there how many go to therapy, it's almost every second person.
That the mothers lost their babies to strangers gets me, and I've given this a lot of thought.
Is it still happening, in Australia?
It's the most shameful thing to happen to what is essentially basic family.
Malcolm

Perspective with adoptions is that any forced adoptions are tragic for most parties.
Maybe the adoptive parents gain a child they longed for.
At the cost of a tragic loss from a usually young mother, that's how it was with forced adoptions.

With perspective anybody can see that outlawing adoption per se is not right, as there are circumstances where adoption is a very real option.
Not however when it's forced and from mothers who are not brain damaged. These mothers who have spoken out in various formats are not brain damaged in any way. They certainly have and are suffering as we have discovered.
That suffering is intolerable and can be eased with the right outcomes of the Report as well as public awareness.

No more shaming the targets/mothers as in "She gave her child away and a kindly family took in that poor child" that's the kind of thinking of a brain dead moron.

The whole Forced adoptions with the Inquiry and Report is an ongoing subject.
Researchers are taking up the call to investigate the many repercussions of a mother losing a baby at an early stage of development.
They are also researching the effects on the baby. There could be recommendations the adoptees have counselling as evidence points to a lot of them suffering also.
There's ample research already on the shelf and there's more coming.

Perspective is adoption is wrong in context of callous and unconscionable coercion inflicted on a loving growing caring mother, causing these mums to lose in such very profoundly tragic circumstances.
The apologies are needed, as are compensations and counseling.

Thnaks
Erica

In order to protect my first born whom I lost to forced adoptions I found myself declaring to him and all a romanticised version of the truths of my forced adoption.
I did this and today think that doing may have been wrong.
Romanticising was, however, the only way I could speak of what was a series of ongoing horror stories.
To tell my first born about these would have placed a burden on him and possibly confuse him regarding his birth father.
I didn't want to do that.
Time passed and at the second reunion, I did tell the truth of it, in part not whole, without the romanticising and this was very difficult for my first born.
It was excruciating for me to open up to this stranger son whom I had longed to know all the days of his life.
That his father had done the unspeakable was not my sons fault and neither was it mine.
That many are talking about forced adoptions without mentioning the role of the fathers leaves me with a real concern.
Fatherless babies don't exist.
It's all so individual, and when we lump all the forced adoptions together we do the individuals a disservice.
Each one has their own experiences of which there may be and appear to be a lot of parrallels, yet no two are the same.
I'm admitting I too didn't dare speak the whole truth of it and that in that doing was misleading.
It was done with one major priority, to not harm my first born with what was a nightmare of conception and thereafter in a family care environment and then in a maternity hospital.
Even as my first born was to eventually hear some of the realities of my experience of forced adoptions, I admit my romanticising was out of order.
I could not romanticise the experiences when I attended first therapy. There I told the whole truths of it and was overwhlemed with the horror of a man who used me in so many different ways to his own advantage, and then systems that did likewise.
Today I see clearly romanticising terrible things doesn't educate, inform or create any real healing for anyone.
Today I also realise the entertainment industy is too often romanticising, as I did, a lot of horrors that should be shown for what they were or are.
Last night I watched "An education" as someone has mentioned here on Indy.
I realised had the protagonist in that 1961 film found herself pregnant from that uncaring and cruellest of men her future would not have been off to university to continue her intellectual growth. It would have been far more messy.
Intellectual and psychological growth, this is so important to everyone, and I would hope the government considers this with whatever they implement to tangibly and responsibly apologise to all the forced adoptions mothers.
They too cannot romanticise forced adoptions, or trivialise it, or cause further harm in any which way as it has now been unearthed for the whole world to see.
If only I had have had the thinking capacity I have today when I romanticised the horrifying experience I endured at the age of 15 and 16 years. I can assure the reader I was not romanticising anything as I endured it all then, I was in shock as in unable to speak. Tongue tied that any man and any authorities could do what they did to me and not feel any shame. I was also unable to assert as I now can.
Adolescence then found me like this, in shock at wrongs when people did these to me and unable to respond with healthy back off or any assertion at all.
this is such a sensitive, complex and very traumatic experience, forced adoptions.

I hope there's some value in what I've divulged here.
At the very least I'm saying romanticising horror one has or many have endured does nought to heal or help or educate anyone.

Thankyou Indy and all who read this.

Forced adoptions seem to be about gender inequality.
Are they, and is this being examined?
The biological mothers seem to have had their free wills taken from them by every authority, and many men included.
Not least for those who were abandoned by the bilogical fathers.
This is a two gender issue, yet the biological fathers didn't have to bare any boards over their bodies, drugs imposed, foods denied, by home or hospital staff and other tortures or deprivations.
They were not giving birth and never have too.
The dangers of sexual inequality are well known and yet there are too many anecdotes about these biological mothers being left alone without any supports, including the bilogical fathers, and this is food for thought for anyone interested in gender social injustices.
Were forced adoptions, amongst other issues, about gender inequality? Is there gender inequality today?
Mia

My mother raised me years after losing her first new born to forced adoptions.,
For all she sacrificed to raise me in the best ways possible I'm appreciative.
What I can't abide is how she has been then, when forced adoptions happened, and still is now treated like a pawn in the systems.
We have a lot of social networks of friends and family yet the dominaters still try it on with my mother.
If they persist there will be legal actions taken against all who do this [as I'm watching a loving mother whose contributed so much to my life and others being harmed again].
We have a barrister as close friend and turn to him for legal advice often.
What we've learnt about the wrongs and abuse against my mother during forced adoptions is atrocious.
I want the giovernment of Australia to start acting in democratic ways towards mothers who have raised their children into adult life, and those with new borns.
Best wishes to all the targets of forced adoptions.

When I lost first newborn to forced adoptions I was 16years young.
I had come from a privileged family and went to what was meant to be privileged care in a hospital run by a religious order when finally my parents found out I was about to give birth. They hadn't noticed all the way along.
What I experienced at the hospital was neglect of their, the staffs, duty of care, not anything near privilege, yet my parents were paying for this service. It was a very high price for them and more so for me.
I write this to tell the reader how I then took to looking at care. Emotional care was and is still a priority to me.
Having found no one who cared about my situation, I was alone with a lot to think about.
The last thing I thought about was what was to eventuate in a trully disturbing and abominable forced adoption.
I didn't think such things could ever happen, to anyone.
After I left that hospital I went home to my privileged family for a short while and worked of my own volition, and some persuasion, in my fathers business.
This lasted a short time, I'd done this work after school prior to becoming pregnant, as I needed to make my living away from that privileged environment and all the lack of emotional support therein.
I went to another occupation and worked hard with care as my giving.
What I never got I intended to give and how.
I did so to the extent I saw the flaws in the organisations for which I worked, and having advocated for the clients who were patients, I was then fired.
This happened more than once and was telling.
They did not like leaders who speak up for the less fortunate and advocate for their well being.
From there I went to further care for people who had been displaced as I had at that hospital.
I cared for the lost, the lonely, the suicidal, the drug addicts, and those who drank heavily, knowing they were all struggling and that if I couldn't have care for my self I could give care. None of this was paid work.
It was the beginning of my new self. One who wanted to contribute to a better world where care was not neglect, nor abandonment of responsibilites to those who needed care.
In other words I gave what I most needed and in that giving I received learning about the other side of privilege. I had ample learning of that at the hospital, yet needed to observe a whole lot more.
I became a quiet activist at every level of work I did thereafter.
Whether the work was paid or unpaid I observed, and observed well, how emotional care was not a priority except from the few.
I was and am one of that few.
If we value the monetary, the business revenue above and beyond the emotional or spiritual we are not a society at all, we are a meaningless machine that operates with emotional impotency, the worst kind of impotency.
This came to me whilst I continued my journey through unchartered waters of so many different kinds of people.
I was always popular, so I fitted in well, albeit on the outskirts, of these displaced worlds.
I could not take on their self destruictive behaviours yet knew they were indeed struggling and this was why they were so. Observations grew into lengthy writings and a lot of creative activity on my part.
If it were not for that forced adoption I would have possibly gone on to complete an advanced standing college degree and known nothing of anything other than affluence.
I chose a different journey, and although I would learn of painful realities at work and outside of work, then as now, I learnt and well about society in Australia.
We are one of the most expensive cities Sydney, and people are struggling, the homeless grow [I work unpaid with these when I am able too] as hotels flourish, and alcoholism does likewise. As the business only models continue to promote a form of anti-empathy that annihilates care as having any meaning.
Work ethic has become work unethical as we do not even have time to give our children proper care, and rather prefer they stay in ten hour a day child care centres.
How did we get here, it wasn't from care?
That young families choose to live in a city filled with hotels and what is openly the most negative society that has to show inhumanity, homelessness and all that arrives there boggles me.
Where is the emotional/spiritual support that is so needed not only in Sydney all over Australia?
It is a priority as without care no city can grow, and this does not mean economically alone. Economics and care are not synonymous, they can be given the right understanding and obesrvations.
Economics without emotional care goes nowhere as I saw when I took my sojourn all over Sydney, NSW and beyond to other worlds apart from my privileged background, after the tragic loss of my first new born.
I recommend all who have real concern for forced adoptions and associated injustices to step outside their comfort zones and really observe, over time, what is real life for the poor, the displaced, the people who have no popularity because they are somehow perceived by too many as very different, and not valuable.
I am now out of that place whereby I seek to observe all the injustices of the world, however, I am still active and with the care principle in tact.
I mingle today with affluent and otherwise and these inclusions happened because I lost by forced adoptions a new born I longed to love and raise as my own, ventured out of privilege, and back again into a more balanced world.
There is a lot I have to resolve, and today I do so with enormous supports and credits, however, I still observe the lack of emoathy and care in numerous government and other organisations.
Human Services is not Human Services, it is more like human resources, people as mere resources is not a caring and long term option for a democratic Australia.
Finally I stand by this and stand tall.
As a mother of a beloved one I did raise I continue to give this valuable one emotional support through all and everything.
I am there for this one. No backing away no matter what age this one has grown too.
There is no monetary remuneration for this kind of care and parental love and attention, however, those in my social circles, and they are vast, admire the work I do to be available for the one child I have raised.
There's also finally two questions here. How many parents allow themselves the time and effort to be emotionally available to their children if they are both working long hours of remunerative or even voluntary work?
Do they ever stop to observe the effects of the lack of this on their displaced and struggling neghbours children?
All my best wishes to all who suffer or have suffered through forced adoptions,. It was and is an abomination.
It can create a great deal of learning about care and humanity and what emotional care does to lift a society to a higher level, in more ways than one.
Birth mother and active emotionally supportive mother all of my life plus a whole lot more.