Forced adoptions: Calls for government apology to mothers

A report has said that hundreds of thousands of unmarried women forced to give up their babies for adoption should receive a government apology.

The inquiry, by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, was set up following a series of reports by BBC News.

It says 185,000 women in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were 'shamed' and 'coerced' into giving up their babies.

Many say they were denied pain relief during birth and abused by social workers, nurses, and other staff.

The committee's report says the women were subjected to 'cruelty', 'abuse', and 'pressure' - all to get them to hand over their babies for adoption.

Many women were initially sent away to mother and baby homes, often run by churches, because their parents were so embarrassed by their pregnancy.

The report said the women "were considered to have transgressed" and had to be punished.

Evidence was taken from around three hundred people, primarily birth mothers and adopted children.

Most mothers are now in their seventies or eighties, with the adopted people in their forties and fifties.

These witnesses spoke of the 'shame' and 'secrecy' surrounding their pregnancy.

During early medical appointments, the report says, the women were treated in a 'dismissive' and 'cruel' way.

One woman told the inquiry: "My GP told me I was a social menace."

Adoption agencies, too, became involved at an early stage. One witness told the inquiry she "was belittled and bullied into thinking I had only one option", namely, to have her baby adopted.

Some of the worst experiences came in the hospital when they gave birth.

Pat Tugwell was a schoolchild when she became pregnant in 1964. She recalls going into labour but being managed by a nurse during an intimate examination.

"It was painful, it was painful," she told me. "She looked at me and said, 'oh, I do not know how you can get pregnant if you cannot let me do this to you'.

"It was just such an awful thing to say. She would never have said it to anybody else who was married, so why did she say that to me just because I was unmarried? She thought I was one of the lowest of the low."

A nurse told another woman she "deserved all the pain I got" during her delivery.

A doctor told another mother, "I should be sterilised as I must be a nymphomaniac."

Many women told the committee they were not allowed to hold their newborn babies.

One wrote, "they pulled her out of my arms… the pain was unbearable."

Another woman said: "I screamed… and hung onto him as a woman possessed."

Other evidence detailed the trauma of handing babies over to social workers.

Judy Baker, who was eighteen when she gave birth in 1967, recalled being told to put her baby down in a room, turn around and leave.

"I never got to say goodbye," she said. "I was just told I would get on with my life. It was as if it had never happened. I had to wait thirty-two years before I could say 'hello' again.

"How can you do that to a teenager and an innocent baby? How can you part them simply because I was unmarried? It was cruel, traumatic and should never have happened."

Chair of the committee, Labour MP Harriet Harman, said the affected women had "suffered from shame and vilification and the burden of secrecy for decades".

"The least the government can do is recognise that this shouldn't have happened then and would never happen now, and it's right for the government to apologise."

Hundreds of birth mothers and adoptees have long campaigned for a government apology.

Liz Harvie was born in 1974 after her mother was pressured to put her up for adoption. She says she has always had problems with her identity, but an apology would help.

"Some people say an apology, you know sorry, is just a tiny word, but what lies behind the apology is the validation of all the pain and suffering we have silently experienced.

"There's lots of shame, lots of guilt, there's lots of secrecy and being part of a secret society like this involved in forced adoptions has been extremely difficult for everyone involved."

Ms Baker said an apology was "never, ever too late".

"Sorry is so essential, and all of us are still living with the trauma and the pain that this has caused us.

"I've spent fifty-plus years of my life, marked, scarred, by the trauma."

The committee concluded there are "some things that only a government can do, and it falls on the government to make this apology".

In response to the committee's conclusions, the government said: "We have the deepest sympathy to all those affected by historic forced adoption.

"While we cannot undo the past, we have strengthened our legislation and practice to be built on empathy, from NHS maternity services caring for vulnerable women and babies to our work transforming the adoption process and care system to help children settle into stable homes."

The committee also urged the government to supply better counselling services for birth mothers and adopted people.

And it called for improved access to birth and medical records, saying there are often considerable disparities in the timeliness of local authorities' responses.