Forced adoption (or forced family separation) are the terms now used to describe the practices where many pregnant unwed women (and their partners) were subjected to unauthorised or illegal separation from their children. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, the prevalence of forced adoption in Australia was high. These practices were unethical, immoral and often illegal. There was a societal expectation for unwed women (the “undeserving”) to “give up” their children to childless, married couples (the “deserving”). Forced adoptions occurred through maternity homes, hospitals and adoption agencies, and privately arranged adoptions. Doctors, nurses, social workers and religious organisations carried them out. Frequently the mother’s (and father’s) own parents were complicit in coercing the mother (and father) into “consenting” to the adoption (AIFS, 2016).
In their report, the Commonwealth contribution to former forced adoption policies and practices, the Senate’s Community Affairs References Committee heard many cases of women who, between about 1940 and 1970, lost their babies even though they had not given consent or who had given consent but only because of coercion. Some women tried to use their legal entitlement to revoke their consent but were refused.
Examples or traumatising and illegal perinatal practices associated with forced adoption included:
While adoption practices in Australia have undergone considerable change since the 1970s, the effects of forced adoption and forced family separation are still very much a part of the lives of the many thousands of people involved. The impacts of forced adoption and family separation are diverse and long-lasting, not only for mothers and fathers separated from a child by adoption, but also for the adult sons and daughters who were adopted as babies, and their extended family members.
