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Was a Government Plan Behind Former Forced Adoption Practices?

• Feb 24, 2012
  
• Emily Wolfinger
  

It was common practice to separte unmarried mothers and their infants last century - Canwest News ServiceWe've heard the stories of mothers whose babies were stolen for adoption last century. Was this simply social mores or was something more sinister at work?
Groundbreaking research by Origins NSW (Australia) is suggesting the existence of a Government population and social cleansing plan that separated unmarried mothers and their infants, last century. This research, which debunks the existence of a "bumper adoption era" circa 1966-72, comes as the Senate Inquiry into the Commonwealth contribution to former forced adoption policies and practices prepares to hand down its final report on the 29th of February.

The Margaret Thornhill Link

Influential Fullbright Scholar Margaret Thornhill visited Australia from America in 1953. Following seminars of the Association of Australian Social Workers during which Thornhill promoted the adoption of illegitimate' babies the AASW set up a committee for the purpose of studying the unmarried mother according to Thornhill's ideas. At this time, a series of articles aimed at educating' the public on the "problem of the unwed mother" (Thornhill's special area of research) appeared in Australian newspapers and magazines, under such titles as Should Unwed Mother Give up Her Child?' What followed was an almost exponential rise in ex-nuptial adoptions. Was this a coincidence?
The aim, it seems, was to transfer the children of one group (ie. unmarried mothers, particularly the youngest mothers) to married infertile couples, as research centred on the theory that a newborn baby would affect hormonal changes and cause a pregnancy, according to numerous articles at Trove. This was during a world population crisis.
The saying that comes to mind here is "adopt a baby and you'll have one of your own", which no doubt has its origins in this research.
Was it any surprise then that other media articles such as These children need parents (but adoption's a slow business)' appeared at the same time, as if to garner interest in adoption and to put the word out that babies were available' for adoption?
So 1953 Is a Significant Year?
Concurrent with the publication of these articles, a Gallup Poll asked Australians if foster children should be taken for adoption against their mother's will. Significantly, the Royal Women's Hospital submission to the current Inquiry into the Commonwealth contribution to former forced adoption policies and practices notes an exponential rise in hospital arranged adoptions from 1953. Elizabeth Brew of Origins NSW has discovered a similar trend in the use of comparative data circa 1953 (NSW statistics). So, in short,1953 at least seems to be a significant year. Chronologically speaking, Brew believes that circa 1953 is the second peak era of adoption in Australia (the first circa 1945): "There is no bumper adoption era' circa 1960-72 but only a desperate attempt to explain away the sudden collapse of the adoption industry in Australia." In fact, she maintains that these were fairly ordinary years proportionally, according to the data that is available.

Social Eugenics and Forced Adoption

The involvement of the churches and the medical profession, in addition to the Government and social workers, in a "social cleansing campaign" aimed at unmarried mothers is being more substantially proven in the research.
For one, in 1950 the morality council of the Church of England examined the prospect of sterilising "women habitually bearing illegitimate children". Australia's national archive carries an article titled Sterility for Illegitimacy', noting enactment for legislation for the sterilisation of unwed mothers in the USA. The Senate Inquiry has also heard reports that Australian unmarried mothers were forcibly sterilised, although this information is yet to be backed up with documentation.
As shocking as the above facts may seem, social engineering was occurring in many parts of the world at this time (for example, there was the British Eugenics Society now known as the Galton Institute) so it should not come as a surprise that Australia was also involved in experimental eugenics.

Biological Eugenics and Forced Adoption

The construction of a "socially fitter" society was only one side of the coin that was a eugenics plan. Alarmingly, eugenicists also targeted illegitimate' babies in what appears to be an attempt to create a physically and racially superior' nation. In an adoption industry' where the infants of unwed mothers were the commodity', it hardly seems surprising that they too were the targets of organisations with a eugenics mindset. An excerpt from the Australian Journal of Social Work from February 1967 details the reasons for deferring babies for adoption, which included "mental and/or physical handicap,", "mixed racial background resulting in markedly coloured pigmentation", and "hereditary background".
And this: in 1940 the Methodist Babies Home reassured prospective adoptive parents that "no baby is allowed to be adopted until the medical experts pronounce it as A1 class for adoption'." In hindsight, it's bizarre how babies were commodified in this way, graded as though they were cattle. However, in a White Australia' this Hitlerian influence does not seem that farfetched.
In the US where forced adoption practices also occurred, one State is currently being sued for the forced sterilisation of mostly African-American women who gave birth outside of wedlock during the second half of last century. Interestingly, a 1955 article from The Tuscaloosa News notes: "[s]ome 150,000 children are born out of wedlock each year. Of this number 95,000 are non-white, predominantly Negro". Of course, the demand was for white, healthy newborns, as the article also notes (September 26).
Some historical context is important here: Elizabeth Brew said that before the 1940s, adoption was "slow business" but as the nature vs nurture' theory shifted to nurture vs nature', the time was right for eugenicists to begin to influence adoption practice:
"Eugenics was transferred to adoption in practice through the removal of illegitimate offspring of the feeble-minded' for raising in socially fitter' families."
Of course the Government was also concerned about the financial burden of illegitimate' children: "…there are in excess of 90,000 endowed children in the Commonwealth, representing an annual liability of 11,828,011 pounds". No surprises there!

Forced Adoption Plan Backfires

By 1972, the Government's adoption plan had well and truly backfired as ex-nuptial births produced a mini ex-nuptial baby boom. The rise in ex-nuptial births in the 1970s, lead to an excess of infants available for adoption, many of whom were institutionalised and identify as Forgotten Australians' today. But why were forced adoptions still occurring? Well, perhaps the pool of available prospective adoptive parents was just as impossible to quickly increase as ingrained, illegal hospital practices were to decrease.
Notably, at this time the Whitlam Government finally began to advertise single mothers' benefits (which had been around since 1944!).
How Many Women Were Affected By Former Forced Adoption Practices?
While research is beginning to provide some answers to questions about why former forced adoption policies and practices occurred, the extent of the crimes is still unknown. Despite the fact that the Inquiry into the Commmonwealth contirbution to former forced adoption policies and practices will conclude at the end of this month, nationwide adoption statistics remain inadequately accessible only NSW and Victorian adoption statistics are available.
Origins NSW is calling for the opening of adoption statistics to the scrutiny of a Royal Commission so as to commence the process of comparative, historical and statistical analysis across all areas of data collection.
Elizabeth Brew is currently working on guidelines for researchers undertaking projects into former forced adoption policies and practices in collaboration with Miriam Stevenson, an affiliate lecturer at the University of Sydney who believes that "members of marginalised groups have much to teach professionals because they have direct experiential knowledge when it comes to asking the right questions and interpreting the facts".
Elizabeth Brew is planning to introduce a new way to interpret comparative statistical data contextualised by historical facts, by those who belong to the targeted, marginalised groups
She believes that if Australia is to move forward it must accurately understand its own history. Governments must be transparent at least in regards to statistical data: "A non-comparative approach to the study of statistical data is not transparent but a means to construct theories which often portray Governments in a favourable light and can lead to the burying of human rights abuses and the subversion of the rule of law."
As mothers anxiously await the handing down of the final report on the 29th of February, they hope to finally get some answers - but many are afraid that it will take a Royal Commission before the record is set straight.



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