It was the experience of many mothers to be deemed as "unfit" simply because they were not married both in the U.S. and countries around the globe. Western Australia has recently issued an official apology to the mothers who lost children to adoption through past unethical adoption practices that not only denied mothers the available services but pressured and forced unmarried mothers to place their babies for adoption. WA remains the only country, to my knowledge, to issue such an apology to surrendering mothers. They are also light years ahead of the United States by working on reforms from the mid-1980's to the present, such as making identifying adoption records available to both the mothers and Adult Adoptees without disclosure or contact vetoes in place. Only six states in the U.S. give an Adult Adoptee unrestricted access to their own birth record. While in the U.S. an adoptee is issued an amended birth certificate with the adoptive parent's names in place of the original parents and the original, in all but two states, is sealed, birth certificates of adoptees in WA show both birth and adoptive information (information on current adoption practices in WA from Andrews, 2010, p.2). The need for research to learn more about the impact of past adoption practices is great.
According to a recent article published by the Australian Family Institute (Higgins, 2011), reliable statistics on adoption are not available in Australia prior to the 1970's and there is a lack of empirical research on the impact of adoption practices overall. His article outlines many of the issues by reviewing previous literature.
Why is Researching the Impact of Past Adoption Practices Important?
Past practices have had an impact and it's important to understand why to better serve those impacted by adoption. I reported briefly in the past on a study out of Australia on the impact of past adoption practices being prevalent in surrendering mothers going on to have more children (also see Andrews 2010). Higgins elaborates on past practices in his article as well.
According to Higgins, adoption policies and practices do not impact the "adoption triangle" alone but other family members as well such as siblings, future spouses of surrendering parents, and even other family members (p. 3).
Societal factors were discussed such as society's views of unmarried mothers and adoption. Adoption was seen as solving the problems of infertility, illegitimacy, and poverty (p.6). Thus, the experience of a single, pregnant woman were three pervasive themes: shame, silence, and discrimination (p. 6). Coercion and lack of support systems in place are reported as being prevalent in the surrender of children to adoption. Mothers were told to go home and forget and were not offered any spiritual or psychological care (p.7).
With the secrecy surrounding adoption and little information once given to the adopted, adoptees wondered if they were loved or wanted (p.7). Mothers have also felt the need to let the adoptee they surrendered know they were wanted and loved. As a result Australia has put into place reunion resources to help families separated by adoption connect.
"[C]ommunity hostility towards single mothers and fears about the ‘quality’ of their offspring resulted in secrecy becoming central to Australian adoption practice" (Higgins p. 7, quoting Swain, 1992).The Research Gap
What else needs to be researched, says Higgins? He lists several things including: medications administered during the perinatal period, surrendering mothers experiencing bullying by those taking the adoption consent, as well as mothers not being able to see, hold, know information about, or name their babies, and practices including involving babies in drug experimentation with no follow-up, to name a few things. What has been the impact of these practices? Is appropriate support in place for those who have been traumatized by these practices?
Conclusion
Without research on the impact of past adoption practices on all those impacted by adoption, there is no information on how to best help and serve these individuals. This research is important to the people of Australia and around the world. As I mentioned before, these same policies and practices can be found during the same era in the United States (see Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up Little Susie"). Although unlike Australia, there is little acknowledgement nor the same changes made to adoption policy and law--changes the United States needs. If the U.S. has not even seen the need to even acknowledge these issues, how can we possibly be appropriately meeting the needs of individuals impacted by adoption? Everyone can learn something from this research.
The Community and Disability Services Ministers’ Conference (CDSMC) has agreed that a study should be conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS). "The focus of this study will be on understanding current needs and information to support improved service responses. It is anticipated that this will be the largest study on the impact of past adoption practices ever conducted in this country" (Higgins, 2011, p.2). To learn more, visit www.aifs.gov.au/pastadoptionpractice.
References:
Andrews, I. (2010). Secondary Infertility and Birth Mothers. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 30(1), 80-93. doi:10.1080/07351690903200184
Higgins, D. (2011). Unfit mothers … unjust practices? Key issues from Australian research on the impact of past adoption practices. Family Matters, (87), 56-67
Monash University also has a history of adoption project going which will report at the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteWe have the same freedom in all States and have had for decades.WA is the first State to apologise and it it hoped the Senate Inquiry will produce an apology for the whole country.Each State may follow suit as well, it remains to be seen.
Isn't it interesting that a piece of paper deems a woman fit to be a mother because she is a wife and deems her children fit to have their pieces of paper? If she is deemed unfit her bastard children are also unfit despite being raised by people who are deemed fit and have a piece of paper.Bang head against wall time!1
Thanks for posting that info Von. I meant to put that this study is in conjunction with Monash University's and completely forgot.
ReplyDeleteYet we still have people who claim there was no baby scoop era, and say Mothers had a choice. There was no child support then. There was no housing for single pregnant women. Pregnant women, even if married, had to quit their jobs when they were showing during the baby scoop years!! Will they believe it if the US, or larger "faith" based agencies give a public apology, like Australia has done?
ReplyDeleteShaming a single pregnant woman continues to this day. While today's pregnant women have resources available to them that my Mother & other Mothers from those years did not, faith based agencies (i.e, the state of Utah, lol) still use this tactic as a form of coercion. I faced those tactics when I was pregnant at the age of 17 in 1983. But I had choices most BSE Mothers only dreamed of having.
The adoption industry cares only about the money. They didn't care about the Mothers, and they don't care about their former product being discriminated against by not having their OBCs. They never did, and they still don't. Their "concern" went away when they cashed that check and the ink on the adoption papers were signed.
Linda, I agree. And just how there's little research and acknowledgement of past adoption practices, there is less on the subject for current adoption practices because people think everything's perfect in adoption now.
ReplyDeleteThat was very interesting information - thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete"[C]ommunity hostility towards single mothers and fears about the ‘quality’ of their offspring..."
ReplyDeleteDitto for America circa 2011...with the presidential campaign gearing up be prepared to hear a constant barrage of "family values" hooey coupled with an endless litany of statistics proving single mothers are responsible for the fall of western civilization.
Gee, if I had known I had so much power to single-handedly destroy society I would have hatched my evil plot to take over the world much sooner.
I think the coercion during the BSE was designed to hide several bugaboos in society to make U.S. society look like the pristine culture it wanted to be. By placing illegitimate children with married couples and sealing their records, society could hide the fact that women do get raped and become pregnant by it, that lots of unmarried couples actually were having sex and that there were plenty of extramarital affairs. It also served to hide all the shady doings of adoption attorneys and social wreckers.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I don't think this country will ever issue an apology.
A professional spoke openly stating to his client: *There is something amiss at the very core of our western and other societies, including Australia and the USA:
ReplyDeleteIt's all about money* (Life is one part about economics but never wholly, it can;t be, there is ample evidence to show this reality.
I haven't stopped reflecting on this as I know the reality of the 1% with economic and political power and the Pretocrats (People living precariously) who comprise all the rest of, most if not all people in societies.
How to undo the lack of understanding, lack of natural healthy human empathy and lack of care for the fate of ourselves and fellow citizens when all the governments and corprations care about is their kind of bottom line, aquisition of wealth and more wealth at any dehumanising and cruel costs?
Freedom entails non-coerced situations and autonmous decision making.
The forced adoptions of babies in Australia and worldwide takes away all human freedom and UN Decalartions bottom line Dignity of the people, individually and collectively.
Babies can't be bought as they are not objects for comsumption.
However, they are being *bought* it's intolerable.
They are human, as are their natural parents.
The adopters are also human; those who adopt from legitimate places and people who are not in it for monetary greed or benefits at the cost of others tragic losses.
The Occcupy Wall Street is telling the States something they need to learn from and I can't emphasise enough how I and mine cannot be part of the chaos, corruption and abuse in society that puts profits above people time after time. There's no ethical nor conscionable reason-ing in this.
It's shameful and people are now displaying openly their civic duties by bringing this up and out into the light in various ways.
This wont stop until the dominators stop neck treading on anyone with less than themselves, and stop being a select club with only the few allowed entry.
There's a corporation called the Salvation Army who have as yet not apologised to people impacted by forced adoptions in Australia, for their rols in Forced Adoptions even as they played a large role there.
They claim they are investigating whilst the Seante Inquiry into Forced Adoptions is investigating.
Do the Salvation Army consider themselves totally apart from all that they can't see how by acknowledging their own role in Forced Adoptions in Australia (does anywhere know anywhere else?) their own corporation heals as well as many people's.
Domination and coercive control are no longer acceptable by any corporation, country or government or their agents.
Worldwide people have a will of their own, and no one can take that away from them.
People are rising all over the world asking for ethics and decent, human, civil humane actions from their fellow citizens who include the heads of the Salvation Army and all corporations who appear to be intimidating the governemnts of many countries.
I'm so glad the Catholic Church has apologised to Forced Adoptions Victims in Australia and is taking Forced Adoptions causes and effects seriously.
The damage done by these I don't have to include here.
Regarding the USA not ever issuing an apology, don;t ever lose hope as the people's voices are now [as John Pilger wrote] the 2nd World Power alongside the USA.
In Hope