Church apologizes for forced adoptions
Source: Agencies |
July 26, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
ROMAN Catholic hospitals in Australia apologized yesterday for forcing unmarried mothers to give up babies for adoption decades ago and urged state governments to accept financial responsibility for the once-widespread practice.
Catholic Health Australia, the largest non-government hospital operator in Australia that provides 10 percent of the nation's hospital beds, said the practice of putting illegitimate children up for adoption to married couples was "regrettably common" from the 1950s to the 1970s.
"These practices of the past are no longer tolerated, nor allowed by today's law, and are deeply regrettable," the church's health arm said.
The statement acknowledged the "pain of separation and loss felt" by affected families. "For this pain, we are genuinely sorry," it said.
Catholic Health Australia Chief Executive Martin Laverty said the apology was calculated to "speed up the federal government into action" to establish a national program to help mothers and children who were harmed by the forced separations.
Laverty made a written submission this month to a national inquiry into what role the federal government had in such adoption policies, under which more than 150,000 Australian babies were separated from their unwed mothers, who were often teenagers.
Senator Rachel Siewert, who chairs the Senate committee conducting the inquiry, declined to pre-empt its recommendations but said such a national program was an option "that we'll be paying a lot of attention to."
"Compensation and reparations of some sort are very high on people's agendas," Siewert said.
The inquiry had heard harrowing stories of a babies being taken without their mothers' signing adoption papers and of mothers not knowing what they were signing.
Catholic Health Australia, the largest non-government hospital operator in Australia that provides 10 percent of the nation's hospital beds, said the practice of putting illegitimate children up for adoption to married couples was "regrettably common" from the 1950s to the 1970s.
"These practices of the past are no longer tolerated, nor allowed by today's law, and are deeply regrettable," the church's health arm said.
The statement acknowledged the "pain of separation and loss felt" by affected families. "For this pain, we are genuinely sorry," it said.
Catholic Health Australia Chief Executive Martin Laverty said the apology was calculated to "speed up the federal government into action" to establish a national program to help mothers and children who were harmed by the forced separations.
Laverty made a written submission this month to a national inquiry into what role the federal government had in such adoption policies, under which more than 150,000 Australian babies were separated from their unwed mothers, who were often teenagers.
Senator Rachel Siewert, who chairs the Senate committee conducting the inquiry, declined to pre-empt its recommendations but said such a national program was an option "that we'll be paying a lot of attention to."
"Compensation and reparations of some sort are very high on people's agendas," Siewert said.
The inquiry had heard harrowing stories of a babies being taken without their mothers' signing adoption papers and of mothers not knowing what they were signing.
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