Forced adoptions apology was PM at her finest
The above article discusses the apology and the gaff the then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott made. The media presumed that it was because he referred to us as birthparents – that was only part of it. The most deeply offending aspect was wanting to include adopters in the apology. Below is an email I sent to another polly who included adopters –
your speech is excellent except for the following
“We say sorry to the mothers, the fathers, the grandparents, the siblings, adoptees and adoptive parents and families who have suffered from the past practice known as forced adoption. They have endured pain, grief and harm for decades”.
What pain have adoptive parents endured? Every day I cried because I could not watch my daughter grow up whilst her adopters enjoyed her company and witnessed all of her milestones.
Not only did the mothers and fathers suffer, but some of the adoptees who were placed in abusive homes and are still suffering, and there are thousands of them. The adoptive parents gained by our tragedy.
When they made submissions to the recent Australia Institute of Family Studies most stated they were very happy with their decision to adopt. They not only benefited from our tragedy the demands they made on government to provide them with our newborns was a prime incentive for the government to introduce more and more barbaric practices to match supply with demand. All legislation to do with secrecy was at their insistence and lobbying of the government. When adoptees fought to have their files opened so they could find out the truth of their ancestry adoptive parents lobbied government to keep the files closed – they went against the very wishes of those they had adopted. 17% of the stolen generation were adopted – can you imagine their outrage if their adoptive parents were apologised too? Why would a group who actively sought our newborns, because of their desire to have a family which they could not create themselves and who took advantage of us when we were most vulnerable be included in an apology which at its heart was the tearing of the baby from its mother’ womb purely and simply because their was a demand by a section of the community that voraciously sought our babies.
The Senate Report recommended that this apology not be given to adoptive parents.
This is an extremely sensitive issue
