Cornerstone: One woman’s journey to find her roots

Cornerstone: One woman’s journey to find her roots

Review

A poignant and revelatory book that gives us a glimpse into the heart and mind of an Australian adoptee through her lived experience.  The pain of adoption seeps through the earlier pages.  For those, brainwashed by government lies and adopters’ assertions that adoption is “in the best interests” of the child, that “fairy tale” is seriously challenged.  The reader will be confronted by Kerri’s sense of alienation, anxiety, deep fear of abandonment and the terror and trauma that stems from being removed from one’s mother and entire biological family. 

Kerri portrays, throughout the book, numerous painful psychological themes that she battles most of her life.  She refers to herself as a “second class citizen”; “alien”; “slave” and “not fully human”.  A person who always feels the outsider, has no sense of belonging and never feels at home. She is not tethered or grounded by belonging to those who reflect back to her familiar physical and personality traits. She never hears what is very ordinary for most: Oh, she has her Grandfather’s chin, her Aunt’s nose her mother’s laugh her father’s sense of humour or love of the bush.  These are things we take for granted when we grow up within a family of our kin. This is how we form our identity.  Adoptees suffer from identity bewilderment and confusion.  Children are not blank slates they come with every gene encoded with ancestral traits.  Those traits are reflected back to us by those with similar DNA – this gives us our sense of belonging and that inexplicable feeling of being home.

Adoption was used primarily to serve the interests and desires of infertile married couples.  This was well accepted in adoption literature and it is clearly demonstrated by Kerri’s lived experience.  She refers to herself as a “tool” to be used for the benefit of others.  In her case her adoptive mother is an alcoholic who uses Kerri to clean, cook and take care of the home.  Kerri wonders if that is the reason she was adopted, to be the maid/slave.  She never felt as if she belonged to the family she was “grafted onto”.  It is revealed that her adoptive mother had two stillborns, and was told by a doctor to adopt a child as this would help her fall pregnant and heal the grief of her loss.  As was the case during most of the 20th century infertile women and/or women with mental health problems were told by their usually male doctors to adopt to solve their infertility and mental health problems.  As you follow Kerri’s journey you realize the nonsense of this advice. 

Kerri was used as a fertility tool, to keep a marriage together and then to be a cleaner and cook.  She describes her life as she perceives it, dark, lonely and alienating as if she is in a prison, a prison made up of the walls of adoption, a locked garden, but one without colour. She states: “The ball and chain of adoption was killing me slowly, painfully”.   Kerri’s clearly portrays her sense of almost claustrophobic entrapment, the walls closing in, as she is isolated amongst people who use her for their wants and needs without ever recognising hers.  As she repeats throughout the pages: “I am nothing but, a ‘doll’ a ‘raggedy doll’ a person made by ‘Government men’”.

Kerri describes the journey she takes to break out of her adoption jail, her colourless walled garden by finding a home with her real family, “a garden with colour”.  A Cornerstone.  However, she describes how adoption workers create obstacles, lie and send her correspondence that often contradicts.  Only when she challenges a particular adoption social worker and begins to demand what is rightfully hers, information about her biological family, does her prison door come ajar. She then begins the slow journey to find her Cornerstone.

It is a powerful story revealing the greed and lawlessness of the adoption industry and how those who worked within it played god with people’s lives, whether adoptees or mothers from whom they stole the babies.

I write this review from the perspective of a Sydney born mother, who had her newborn stolen, sight unseen, whilst heavily drugged and forced to sign a consent form before I was let out of my prison/hospital.  Drugged and traumatised I knew I had no choice.  Adoptees certainly had no choice and as Kerri states were “pawns” in the “Government’s game”.

There are some marvellous pieces of poetry sprinkled throughout the book, some laughter and in the end a lot more colour and sunshine.  Kerri has focused her pain on something very productive setting up an organisation that uses DNA to connect family members – the Australian DNA Hub and a Facebook page to support those separated by barbaric adoption Within These Walls. DNA matching is particularly helpful when bureaucrats still play god and refuse to release the names of mothers and fathers, to which they have easy access, whilst adoptees do not and are left begging for information, which should be their god given right – knowledge of their biological relatives. Adoption bureaucrats are still promoting adoption and adoption ensures that adoptees will not know the truth of their birth as they receive a fraudulent birth certificate. It does not reflect the truth of the birth.  It states the adopters gave birth to a child they did not and hence the real parents are expunged. Secrecy and lies are still very much a part of the adoption industry.

Kerri states; “Adoption is no longer needed; what is needed is a biological family preservation system for children.  A safe home environment, but which connects to biological family members is a must.  There is no need to change a child’s identity just to be given a safe home…Adopters need to learn that wanting to adopt is a mental illness and medically they are grieving for a child; … to replace their lost ability to have a bio baby.  That can’t be, because the baby has a mother and a father as well as other family members  … It is the problem of society saying it’s ok to take.  When … to get a baby from another source is seen as good societal behaviour, it is forgetting in the process the most important consequence: Humans doing harm to another Human for their own needs and greed …Why do we continue to force this ongoing trauma on other human beings?  Why indeed!

It should be remembered when a couple get divorced both parties have every right to see their child.  No matter who is in the wrong in the divorce.  The child’s birth certificate is not altered to hide the truth of his or her birth and neither is either side of the extended family members banned by law from having contact with their grandson, niece or cousin.  Why is it so different with adoption where the child is permanently removed from all his or her extended biological kin, has their identity permanently altered and the real circumstances of its birth hidden behind a legal document that in reality is a legally sanctioned lie. Further ownership of the child is transferred from one party to another via an adoption contract, that in past times was referred to as slavery.

http://www.australiaandndnahub.org.au

ausdnahub@gmail.com

Facebook Group: Within These Walls

Australians Affected by Adoption Reconnecting By DNA

THE NEED FOR A DNA BANK

During the course of my PhD I met others who provided further information about the abuses that were perpetrated on mothers and their infants. The following was the outcome of an accidental meeting with a person who knew I was writing this thesis.  I include it in the Appendix because of the claims, though disturbing, also support that of the participant I interviewed who worked in the same era, 1941-1944, at Crown St.

Knowing from where we came gives us a sense of place, belonging and identity and its importance to good mental health has been well acknowledged in the literature (Kenny et al: 2013; CARCR: 2012). The following evidences the need for a DNA bank. 

My mother did her midwifery training at St Margaret’s Hospital, Sydney, in the 1940s during World War II.  She went on to run a community based hospital later.  The things she told me that went on in the hospital were truly shocking.  She stated: “The nuns were just so cruel.  They would badger the unmarried mothers constantly, telling them that if they wanted to ‘do the right thing’ they should adopt out their newborns. They kept repeating, sometimes very aggressively, how selfish they were if they kept them because there was ‘this lovely married couple who couldn’t have children that would give them all the things they couldn’t’.   It didn’t matter how distressed they got, or how much they begged to see their babies, the nuns refused to bring them.  Instead they rushed them out of the maternity ward and hid them from their mothers. In the days that followed they never let them see them, and refused even to tell them if they had a boy or a girl.  It didn’t matter what they did the nuns refused to let them have their babies.  Other mothers though, were outright lied to and told their babies had died when they had not. 

There was a whole stream of wealthy infertile Catholic women who would come to the hospital.  They would come in with a pillow strapped to their waist and they would go to the floor above and wait until an unmarried woman gave birth then the baby would be brought directly to them, so they left the hospital with another woman’s baby whilst that woman was told her baby had died.  I could not believe the lies the nuns told – and to think they were supposed to be god fearing. 

They would even swap babies or show someone else’s dead baby to a woman who didn’t believe her baby had died.  If one of the married Catholic women gave birth to a baby with a defect, a hare lip for instance, they would swap babies. They would give the baby with the hare lip to the unmarried mother and her baby to the wealthy woman.  Nothing seemed beyond them.  It was abject cruelty, really.  The lies they told! It was a baby farm.  I often wondered what happened to them, those mothers and babies, did they survive?  When my mother ran the community hospital later, she would employ single mothers as nurses and make sure those giving birth got their babies and could leave the hospital with them.

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment

‘The Lies My Government Told Me’ by Dr Robert Malone

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment

Jennie Burrows Memorial

We farewelled Jennie on Friday evening at Leichardt Town Hall 11/02/2023. In attendance were members of The NSW Memorial Committee, the Apology Alliance, which included myself: Dr Christine Cole as well as family, and her many friends.

The short video below are a few words I spoke to Jennie’s contributions to our cause on the evening.

Jennie was a warrior for the cause of gaining justices for the mothers whose babies were kidnapped at birth then placed with strangers via illegal adoptions.

Jennie began an organisation in the mid 1980s, ‘Mothers for Contact’, which fought to have the files of mothers and their stolen adult children opened. This enabled them after many years of separation the ability to find each other. She went on to fight for the exposure of the brutal practices employed by social workers, doctors, nurses and all those who worked in the adoption industry illegally taking the babies from single mothers to give them to married infertile couples She fought, corrupt medical staff, bureaucrats and all those engaged in Australia’s biggest child trafficking racket, to make them accountable for their crimes and to gain justice for all those they intentionally harmed.

Jennie wrote numerous submissions to Government and fought as an Apology Alliance member to gain all the state and the federal apologies. This campaign was successful and we received a fulsome apology from Prime Minister Julia Gillard, March 21, 2013. The Prime Minister acknowledged the brutality of the separation of mothers from their newborns and the lifelong pain caused to both because of the misguided governmental policy and the illegal acts of those working in the adoption industry An industry that became Australia’s greatest child trafficking network – both government and medically sanctioned.

Jennie was part of the NSW Memorial Committee organising a Statue of a Mother and Babe to be placed in Hyde Park. Unfortunately she passed away before seeing the project completed and the Memorial installed.

Jennie presented at Sydney Museum to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the NSW Apology, September 13, 2022. She gave me a book of poems she had edited and published by Mothers for Contact in 1994. I will be posting the poems over the next few weeks. Thank you Jennie.

Jennie’s contribution to the survivors of illegal adoption cannot be overstated. She worked for decades for justice and we who are part of the Apology Alliance will carry on her legacy. She cannot be .replaced, but she will be remembered.

Posted in My Articles | 1 Comment

Branching Out: October 2009 Brief History of the Apology Alliance Australia Feb 2008 – Oct 2009 (Excerpt) How the Alliance was born – Barbara Maison

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment

THE AUSTRALIAN FRIDAY NOVEMBER 21 2008 — Members of the Apology Alliance Australia

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment

The book that launched the fight for Apologies, Senate Inquiry and Memorials – Releasing the Past: Mothers’ Stories of their Stolen Babies

Without Consent: Australia’s Post Adoption Practices Exhibition launch

The Committee to Draft the Federal Apology meeting with PM Julia Gillard just prior to her delivering her historical Apology to Mothers and Babies Illegally and Brutally separated at birth. Parliament House Canberra March, 21st 2013. Guest, Isabella Rose Cole, Dr.Christine Cole’s granddaughter

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment

Members of the Apology Alliance Fight for a National Inquiry 2007 – Where it all began!

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment

10th Anniversary of the NSW Apology to the Mothers of White Stolen Babies

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment

Unveiling: Hidden Mothers’ Lost Innocents.
This unveiling took place at 11 a.m., 24th September 2022 at Alexandra Ave Croydon, NSW

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment

King Edward Memorial Hospital removes ‘offensive’ forced adoption apology amid redress fight

By Claire Moodie

Posted Sat 30 Jul 2022 at 5:15amSaturday 30 Jul 2022 at 5:15am, updated Sat 30 Jul 2022 at 12:42pmSaturday 30 Jul 2022 at 12:42pm

Lisa Moore holding adoption certificate
Lisa Moore says she was coerced into giving up her baby for adoption at the age of 15.(ABC News: Claire Moodie)

Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article

abc.net.au/news/forced-adoption-survivors-kemh-apology-redress/101272964COPY LINKSHARE

Holding up the adoption certificate she reluctantly signed as a 15-year-old mother, Lisa Moore still struggles to contain her outrage over the events of 40 years ago.

Key points:

  • The hospital has removed the apology from its website
  • Forced adoption survivors say their concerns are not heard
  • The WA Opposition supports calls for a fresh inquiry 

She chokes up and wipes away tears as she recounts what happened after she fell pregnant to her 18-year-old boyfriend while growing up in the suburbs of Perth in 1981.

Even though her parents offered to look after the baby, Ms Moore says the family was manipulated and lied to by social workers who were hell-bent on adopting out her unborn child.

“You’re told you can give them nothing and the adoptive parents can give them everything so you’re made to feel like a loser in a way,” she says.

“I was told that if I loved him, I would give him up.” 

Baby snatched away

Following the birth at Perth’s King Edward Memorial hospital, Ms Moore says her son was whisked away before she could hold him.

“He was born and the nurse went to give him to me and the doctor said ‘no you can’t do that, he’s up for adoption,” she said.

The next day, she was handed a birth registration document to sign that already had a boy’s name on it.

A teenage girl pictured in 1981 against a wallpaper background.
Lisa Moore was just 15 when she was forced to give up her baby for adoption in 1981.(Supplied: Lisa Moore)

“They said the nurses named him after one of the doctors there,” she says.

“I didn’t get to name him. Even that right was taken from me.” 

When her parents visited her in hospital and tried to see the baby, Ms Moore says they were escorted out by security.

And when she tried herself to see her newborn, she was taken back to her room and told if she did not calm down, she would be sedated.

Little action since apology

Ms Moore’s horrific story helped to spark a public apology  by the West Australian parliament in 2010 to women forced to give up their babies.

But 12 years on, Ms Moore – like many survivors of the forced adoption era – is still plagued by unanswered questions and unfulfilled promises.

Gillard apologises for forced adoptions
In 2013 then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard made an historic apology to those affected by forced adoption practices of the past.(AAP: Alan Porritt)

Despite the WA apology and a subsequent federal apology, as well as a senate inquiry, survivors say little has been done since to address the toll on both mothers and adoptees (the children, now adults, who were adopted out).

Ms Moore is backing calls for Western Australia to follow Victoria and hold a fresh inquiry.

This week, adoptees who and have been pushing for a WA inquiry, had a small but significant win.

A stork motif above the entrance to the King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women.
King Edward Memorial Hospital removed the apology from its website.(720 ABC Perth: Emma Wynne )

After speaking out to the ABC, the group achieved some key concessions from King Edward Memorial Hospital.

On Wednesday, the hospital agreed to take down a controversial  ‘formal apology’ from its website which had enraged survivors when it was posted in May.

They had labelled it “not truthful”, “offensive” and potentially triggering for both mothers and adoptees because it didn’t actually apologise for what the hospital had done, instead referring readers to the state and national apologies.

women standing in group on the steps of the WA parliament
Mothers from the support group ARMS WA say there has been little done to support them since the 2010 state apology.(ABC News: Claire Moodie)

They said the so-called apology breached recommendations from the senate report that said “formal apologies should always be accompanied by undertakings to take concrete actions that offer appropriate redress for past mistakes.”

Women and Newborn Health Service acting executive director Diane Barr told the ABC she had met with an affected community member to hear their concerns and had reiterated her commitment to partner with the community to “improve the apology statement”.

Do you know more about this story? Contact Claire Moodie

Medical records access sought

Adoptee Jen McRae says the hospital had also pledged to investigate how survivors could be better assisted to get hold of their medical records, long a bone of contention for those trying to put together the missing pieces of their lives.

Lisa Moore tried in 2008 to get hold of her medical records but was told they had been mislaid.

Jen McRae standing in front of entrance to hospital
Jen McRae says there are many unanswered questions around forced adoptions in WA.(ABC News: Claire Moodie)

“I think I’m entitled to those records,” she says.

“I think maybe more care should be taken with adoption records. This ‘can’t find them but that was the times back then’ — sorry, that’s just not good enough.

“I will never get back what was taken from me.”

Lasting trauma

Ms Moore had to wait 26 years before she finally met her son.

Although he lives in the United Kingdom, they now have a good, albeit long-distance relationship.

But she has had to pay for specialist counselling to cope with the complex trauma that both mothers and adoptees often face.

“You go through life thinking that you are a bad person because good people don’t give babies up,” she says.

Jen and Lynn sitting together looking at camera
Jen McRae is working with Lynne Devine of ARMS WA to push for a WA inquiry into forced adoptions.(ABC News: Claire Moodie)

Free specialised counselling for all forced adoption survivors should be made available according to the group ARMS WA, a support group for mothers separated from their children by adoption.

In a statement, the Department of Communities said a Forced Adoption Support Service run by Relationships WA offered “referral and information services that include support and counselling for anyone who has been affected by forced adoption”.

Push for WA inquiry into forced adoptions

Women pressured to give up their babies for adoption and people stolen from their mothers speak out and unite to call for an inquiry into the practice.

portrait shot of Michelle Davies

Read more

The free national service has been funded by the Federal Department of Social Services since 2014. 

In Western Australia, it helped over 100 clients last financial year with a range of services including searching for records, Centrelink applications and trauma-informed counselling.

But ARMS WA coordinator Lynne Devine said the service, whilst caring and appreciated, does not have the time or funds to deal with severely traumatised clients.

“We need fully qualified psychologists and probably psychiatrists as well who have studied in depth the difficulties created by enforced separation by adoption,” she said.

“We have all lived a deep and soul-wrenching event committed upon us by an uncaring society and somehow we have to live with the aftermath and pretend to live normal lives. 

“It is not good enough.”

“We need truth-telling and we need an inquiry because, quite simply, an apology without any back-up is a somewhat empty vessel,” Ms Devine said.

Adoption inquiry, redress call.

Opposition Health spokeswoman Libby Mettam supports calls for WA to hold another inquiry, which may lead to a redress scheme being set up.

“The bipartisan apology that happened in 2010 was vitally important but there is now more that needs to be done. There is a lot of hurt,” she says.

Libby Mettam, Deputy Liberal leader
Libby Mettam backs calls for a fresh inquiry into forced adoption.(ABC News: Claire Moodie)

“There does need to be some look into what can be done to at least in some part support these women, but also their children, a bit better going forward.

“The stories I have heard so far are deeply distressing, not just the coercion that these mothers felt but also the way they were treated in hospital.

“There’s a lot of trauma associated with these experiences but also a lot of unanswered questions as well.”

The state government said consideration was being given to the recommendations from a number of reports and inquiries related to forced adoption.

If you have been affected by forced adoption, the Forced Adoption Support Service can be contacted on 1300 364 277 or via their website here.

Posted 30 Jul 202230 Jul 2022, updated 30 Jul 202230 Jul 2022

Kidnapped at birth: Child trafficking in Australia

Victoria has acknowledged that governments, non-government organisations, religious institutions and professionals such as doctors and social workers all played a role in enabling children to be forcibly taken away.

MODERN DAY FORCED

ADOPTION

Children’s Court throws out plan by NSW welfare officials to remove baby from mother at birth

ABC Newcastle

 / By Giselle Wakatama

Posted Wed 23 Jun 2021 at 6:43amWednesday 23 Jun 2021 at 6:43am, updated Wed 23 Jun 2021 at 9:04amWednesday 23 Jun 2021 at 9:04am

osted Wed 23 Jun 2021 at 6:43amWednesday 23 Jun 2021 at 6:43am, updated Wed 23 Jun 2021 at 9:04amWednesday 23 Jun 2021 at 9:04am

Scales of justice outside a court.
Court documents reveal a plan for the child to be taken into state care at birth.(Supplied)

abc.net.au/news/childrens-court-slams-plan-to-remove-baby-from-mother-at-birth/100231236

Court documents reveal that an application by state welfare officials to remove a baby from his teenage mother’s care was thrown out by a judge just days after the pair were separated.

Key points:

  • The baby was to be removed from his teenage mother at birth 
  • Children’s Court says welfare officials were not justified to take the baby into care
  • Department says welfare of children is key priority but case has appalled human rights lawyer 

The separation was planned at least six months before the baby was born in April last year.

Children’s Court documents obtained by the ABC give a timeline of events and actions taken by the NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DoCJ).

“In the present case it is plain that in October 2019, DoCJ staff identified the question of whether an intervention should be considered, even though the child was still a foetus,” the judge said.

In this case, the ABC can outline the Children’s Court documents because they were contained in a subsequent District Court judgment for court costs.

The documents show that before the child was born, his teenage mother, who has an intellectual disability, and her foster mother were told he would be taken into care at birth.

The documents also describe a plan to stop the mum breastfeeding her child.

Close up of pregnant woman's stomach on beach
A plan was made to remove the child from his mother’s care.(Unsplash: Xavier Mouton, file photo)

“Somewhat insensitively and lacking in insight, a plan was envisaged whereby breast milk would be provided to the newborn child through bottle feeding, absent the mother,” the judge said.

“Somewhat insensitively and lacking in insight, a plan was envisaged whereby breast milk would be provided to the newborn child through bottle feeding, absent the mother,” the judge said.

The intervention was planned even though the teenager passed fitness tests and had the support of her caseworker.

The Children’s Court heard that more senior DoCJ officials had a different view.

“The DoCJ decision-making hierarchy determined that any plan for the child’s placement with the mother’s carer would not be supported, and it was decided that the child would not be going home with his mother,” the judge said.

Court finds case unjust

The Children’s Court documents show the mother understood parenthood and had passed fitness assessments.

“The mother had attended four sessions of a required parenting program, she had contributed well to discussions in that program [and] appeared to have insight,” the judge said.

“She asked appropriate questions relating to the birth, breastfeeding, and spoke positively of preparing for the child.”

The case has appalled expert children’s law advocate and human rights lawyer

Neisha Shepherd.

“We shouldn’t be sealing any child’s fate before it is born, about whether it should be removed or not, before an adequate assessment,” she said.

“And we should not be denying a child’s basic human rights to live with a parent.”

Ms Shepherd said the plan to stop the mother breastfeeding was also distressing.

“A little baby, not to have that opportunity where there are no risk issues, where the evidence is that everything is going fine for that mother and that baby, is heartbreaking.”

The case has also concerned psychiatrist Geoff Rickarby, who has advised state and federal governments on child protection and helped thousands of mothers who have been separated from their children.

He said departmental officials must learn from the case, which he described as a “gross mistake”.

“Something really went wrong … it is the people at that level [of management] that really need to be educated.”

Department ordered to pay legal fees

In the District Court case for costs, the girl’s foster mother sought almost $40,000 in damages and won.

District Court judge Leonard Levy said “the proceedings lacked justificatory merit”.

“I find the (DoCJ) secretary’s pre-planned intervention and the proceedings that were brought, were precipitously premature and lacked the required factual consideration,” he said.

“The action taken by the secretary was based on a necessarily incomplete assessment and it was therefore unjustified in the circumstances.

“I find that [the foster mother] should be compensated for the legal costs she has incurred in her participation in the underlying proceedings.”

Ms Shepherd praised the decision.

“These are children’s lives, these are families’ lives, and when we’re making decisions about a fundamental human right, we need to do it properly.”

The baby was restored to his mother’s care after the woman’s foster mum sought an urgent intervention in court proceedings.

It meant the baby was back with his mother within days.

But uncertainty remained, as the official assumption-into-care notice was not dismissed by the court until December last year.

In a statement, the department said it was “committed to continually improving practice to ensure better outcomes for children, young people and their families”.

“The department does not provide specific comment on individual child protection matters for privacy reasons,” it added.

Social worker tells of forced adoptions

Four Corners

 / 

By Geoff Thompson

Posted Mon 27 Feb 2012 at 4:24pmMonday 27 Feb 2012 at 4:24pm, updated Mon 27 Feb 2012 at 10:59pmMonday 27 Feb 2012 at 10:59pm

A baby's hand Feb 2007
The State Government wants foster families to adopt their children.(Cosmin Serban, file photo: http://www.sxc.hu)

Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article

abc.net.au/news/social-worker-tells-of-forced-adoptions/3855210COPY LINKSHARE

A former social worker has told how she was instructed to actively encourage young unmarried mothers to give up their babies for adoption at a Sydney hospital in the 1970s.

The woman, who wishes to be known only as “Jan”, was a trainee social worker at Sydney’s Royal Hospital For Women when it was run by the Benevolent Society in 1972.

She has told ABC1’s Four Corners she has always felt awful about her part in pressuring young unmarried women 40 years ago.

“Basically my job was to shut them up, stop them crying, get them to realise that giving up their baby was the best thing that they could do and get on with it,” she said.

Jan says it was made clear to her by her superiors that adoption was the only message to be delivered to unmarried mothers.

“I was one of the people who was involved with telling the girls that if they kept their baby they were being selfish. They were being selfish to the baby and selfish to the adopting parents who really wanted to have a child,” she said.

Precise figures are not known, but it has been estimated that up one quarter of a million women gave their children up for adoption in Australia between the 1920s and 1980s.

Many of those women now claim they were given no choice but to surrender their babies for adoption in the face of family and social pressure.

Some claim they were drugged and restrained before giving adoption consents.

A Senate inquiry is due to report on Wednesday after 12 months of gathering evidence from hundreds of relinquishing mothers across Australia.

Some mothers claim the signatures on their adoption consents were forged while others allege that they were wrongly told their babies were dead, only to be contacted by grown children years later.

Margaret Freeman gave birth at Newcastle’s Mater Hospital in 1975 when she was 17. Her son was taken away instantly and when she returned to the hospital to retrieve him she was told he was already adopted out.

“It wasn’t like giving birth, it was just like an instant loss. You know for months beforehand you feel him moving and kicking and then he’s not there, and not in your arms he’s just gone,” she said.

Monica Jones told Four Corners she was in her early 20s when her child was taken.

“It was a form of punishment. We were naughty girls and we didn’t deserve to have our babies. And that’s the way I have lived since I was 22,” she said.

“I have lived with that shame that I was a naughty girl and had to be punished.

“To go through your life and never know what it is like to see the child you gave birth to is a terrible thing.”

Posted 27 Feb 201227 Feb 2012

Posted in My Articles | Leave a comment