Church says "sorry" over forced adoptions.

[laconicsax]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/catholic-church-apologises-over-forced-adoptions/2808672

It is believed at least 150,000 Australian women had their babies taken against their will by some churches and adoption agencies between the 1950s and 1970s.

...

"My ankles were strapped to the bed, they were in stirrups and I was gassed, I had plenty of gas and they just snatched away the baby," Ms Clough said.

"You weren't allowed to see him or touch him, anything like that, or hold him and it was just like a piece of my soul had died. And it's still dead"

...

Women have told the ABC there was pressure to sign adoption papers well before consent could legally be obtained, and in some cases documents were forged.

The article isn't clear what "between the 1950s and 1970s means in terms of exact years, but if we take that to mean 1950-1979, that's 13-14 children per day, and that's a minimum.

Time to add human trafficking to the list of admitted crimes perpetrated by God's representatives. I guess they just didn't know any better :shrug:

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. I've come to realize how little good churches ever do. nt

[laconicsax]

6. A couple years back there was a debate over that issue.

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/catholic-church

In it, the audience were polled before and after the debate over whether the agreed with the proposition, "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world." Before, it was 678 for, 1102 against, 346 undecided and at the end, it was a rout: 268 for, 1876 against, and 34 undecided.

I think that had this sickening practice in Australia been brought up, it would have been even more lopsided.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. I think Christian churches in America are right wing and used to carry out evil....

(And don't anyone tell me that "all" churches aren't evil. The ones that aren't are exceptions to the rule, which means they're unusual and not the norm).

[TheDebbieDee]

16. I started coming to that realization slowly throughout 2005.

My beliefs can be summarized as: 1) I believe there is a God but I don't believe most of what religions say about him or her. And 2) Religions are money-making organizations that operate out of churches instead offices.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

23. Yep. Religions engage in a tremendous amount of evil-doing, and

American churches are ministries of right wing propaganda.

[struggle4progress]

2. Doctor defends medical staff over forced adoptions

BY JACQUI JONES HEALTH REPORTER
28 Jul, 2011 12:00 AM

... Dr Owen James said all obstetric units in Newcastle, including those at the former Royal Newcastle and Western Suburbs hospitals and Belmont Hospital, followed the same procedures ...

Dr James said the Catholic-run former Newcastle Mater Misericordiae Hospital had been singled out for criticism regarding past adoption practices.

Hunter Catholic organisations on Monday publicly apologised to victims of a "stolen white babies generation" in which young unmarried women were forced into surrendering their children at birth during the 1950s, 60s and 70s ...

"Being Catholic has nothing to do with the matter" ...

http://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/news/general/doctor-defends-medical-staff-over-forced-adoptions/2240457.aspx?storypage=0

[laconicsax]

9. I see you've decided to try and excuse the crimes of a religious group.

Absolutely sickening, s4p.

[struggle4progress]

13. Could be. Or maybe the Catholics are the only ones who've apologized for a more wide-spread behavior

:shrug:

You tend to get to the bottom-line pretty quickly, and I'm not convinced you're objective and careful when reaching your conclusions

[laconicsax]

15. Tell me, why would they apologize if they weren't involved?

You may have noticed that someone else has already mentioned a similar practice in Ireland, so I think that should be taken into account as possible evidence of a pattern of behavior.

As for being objective, I prefer to operate by the motto "facts first, analysis later" rather than http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x112845#112952">choosing my "take," focusing on certain words or ideas, and changing the subject by saying "how very important context is to understanding whatever it was" being discussed.

[struggle4progress]

19. If you are actually interested in this issue, you can obtain the 2000 NSW report here:

Releasing the Past
Adoption Practices 1950-1998
Final Report
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/56E4E53DFA16A023CA256CFD002A63BC

[laconicsax]

26. And the distractions begin

I'm not sure whether you read that report, but one thing becomes quite clear only a little way in: There were about 64,000 adoptions in NSW from 1950-1979. This means that NSW was only one place where this detestable behavior went on and/or a large number of the forced adoptions were never officially reported. Either way, this report can't address more than a fraction of instances of forced adoptions.

Also, in this entire 245-page report, there are only a handful of pages which even make mention of "rapid" forced adoptions. There is an interesting section at the end of page 30, which states that only six private adoption agencies were registered by 1967 and all of them were religious (specifically Christian).

But by all means, keep telling yourself that this isn't important, heinous, or relevant to the moral failings (that's such a weak expression) of the Catholic Church. They were only directly involved in a practice where at least 150,000 women had their children taken from them through no fault of their own.

[humblebum]

49. Trying posting an article like this about organized atheism

and see how long it takes to be deleted.

[ZombieHorde]

50. Try it and find out. Don't be afraid to test your hunches. nt

[humblebum]

51. I did and it was. More than once. nt

[ZombieHorde]

52. If you offer a link, I can probably show you where you went wrong.

You can post almost anything on DU, as long as it is packaged correctly. The main factor that is out of your control is if the thread becomes flame festival by other posters.

[humblebum]

54. Oh I agree that discretion is always in order, but the statement

"as long as it is packaged correctly" is rather equivocal.

[ZombieHorde]

56. OK. Post a link to a thread about organized atheism you feel was unfairly locked.

Let's shine some light on this possible double standard.

[humblebum]

58. Well, considering the ones that I am referring to have all been deleted,

it is rather hard to do that.

[humblebum]

57. deleted

[LeftishBrit]

48. While it is true that this was a common policy with regard to unmarried mothers in general...

the Catholic groups that took part in this were not *forced* to. 'But all the other kids did it too!' is not really an excuse for a group that is supposedly acting on a charitable basis.

[struggle4progress]

3. Forceful Adoption is a Stigma on Australia’s History

Submitted by Elina Needham on Mon, 07/25/2011 - 08:59

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert would chair the Senate Inquiry, where judgment would be delivered for the country's former adoption practices.

The Catholic Church's adoption agency .. earlier also apologized for their act, in an inquiry by a New South Wales Parliamentary committee in 2000.

http://topnews.us/content/242063-forceful-adoption-stigma-australia-s-history

[Angry Dragon]

4. I wonder if any money changed hands

[laconicsax]

11. It's possible.

Don't know if it happened, though.

[struggle4progress]

5. Australia hospitals apologize for forced adoptions

Originally published: July 25, 2011 12:59 AM
Updated: July 25, 2011 1:46 AM
By The Associated Press ROD McGUIRK

... Catholic Health Australia chief executive Martin 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.

He said the federal government should establish a national program funded by state governments, which have primary responsibility for Australia's adoption laws ...

Lily Arthur, who as a 17-year-old ward of the state gave up her son in 1967 under threat of being imprisoned, welcomed the national inquiry into practices that included drugging mothers and concealing what options were available to mothers other than adoption.

Arthur, coordinator of the Sydney-based adoption support group Origins Inc., lost a Queensland state Supreme Court test case for compensation from the state government in 2004 ...

http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/australia-hospitals-apologize-for-forced-adoptions-1.3048912

[ZombieHorde]

7. Once someone labels themselves "Catholic Hierarchy," they seem to feel free to do anything.

By hierarchy, I mean priest, deacon, bishop, cardinal, and pope. Those labels really seem to fuck with people's heads.

[laconicsax]

10. But you see, being Catholic has nothing to do with it.

That's why it's necessary to post multiple articles on the same topic with headlines that don't blame the Church, which is just an innocent bystander in this awful affair.

:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

[skepticscott]

21. It can't help itself

Googling for God is in its nature.

[Warpy]

12. Some girls in Ireland were allowed to nurse the babies

for a week, a month, a year, and then the babies were snatched away and the girls were told nothing. It's assumed the Catholic church did a brisk business in adoption fees from adoptive couples in the US.

Having a child snatched at birth is bad enough, but having one you'd fed and bonded to snatched away was unbelievably cruel, even by Rome's standards.

And they wonder why I left.

[laconicsax]

14. As someone was quoted in the article:

"It sounds like some totalitarian country somewhere hundreds of years ago..."

Didn't the Nazis do something like this too?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. And the Argentinian right-wing (and quite Catholic) military dictatorship.

With added murder of the mother. And father.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/269834.stm

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. The Nazis stole blond children from Eastern Europe and gave them to

Nazu party members to raise. The idea was that these blond children were misplaced "Aryans" who had somehow been born to "inferior" Slavic people.

[laconicsax]

30. Thanks, that's what was remembering. n/t

[customerserviceguy]

18. This happened in French Canada, too

between 1935 and 1965. I know, I was one of the adoptees from that period.

While it looks bizarre to us today, it was a way to try to erase the "sin" of premarital sex. Of course, the moral equivalent today is "pray away the gay".

[BR_Parkway]

20. But no one had premarital sex back then - it was a utopian wonderland

that was only ruined by the 60's, rock & roll, marijuana, the pill, proposed ERA, gay agenda......



Well, to hear them tell it anyhow...

[customerserviceguy]

22. And forcing unwed mothers to give up infants

to pretend that they never had sex was what helped them tell it that way. It was disguised as being for the benefit of the child, when it really was to protect the lie that society was living with.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. It was standard practice in the U.S. In the 1950s and 1960s, and

not just among Catholics or even religious groups.

Having a child out of wedlock was considered so shameful that there were only two socially acceptable solutions for a middle class girl who was single and pregnant:

1. A -shotgun marriage
2. Disappearing to another state for several months (supposedly to go to boarding school or take care of a sick relative) with the understanding that she would come back w/o the baby.

In the late 1990s, Oregon opened it's adoption records to adult adopters, and the older women who lived in my building were horrified. They had so internalized the attitudes of that period that they were certain that a woman whose past unwed pregnancy was revealed would be divorced by her husband and rejected by her friends.

All the more surprising because these women were in secular Oregon.

[laconicsax]

27. Oregon isn't that secular...

Marriage equality was banned by constitutional amendment only a few years ago and the last gubernatorial election was very, very close.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. That's more cowboy and lumberjack machismo than religiosity

Oregon's politics is otherwise tinged with libertarianism, which is why decriminalization of marijuana and assisted suicide passed so overwhelmingly.

Oregon and Washigton have the largest percentage of self-identified atheists in the country.

[laconicsax]

29. But we're not spread out across the state.

Portland and Eugene have a fair number of atheists, and that's about it. Even the areas around those two cities are regressive. For example, start in Portland and drive a few miles West--you're in God-fearing Republican country. Cross the river and go north--same thing. Go South into Clackamas county--same thing again. All that's left is going East to Gresham, which is packed full of churches and Republicans from Beaverton.

Ashland, usually heralded as a liberal oasis, is full of 'tolerant' tone trolls who are ok with atheists so long as we shut up and the rest of the Rogue Valley is occasionally terrifying.

It's the same thing in Washington. Seattle and Bellingham are secular, but that's about it (I honestly can't remember what Tacoma's like, other than smelly).

[trotsky]

33. That sounds a lot like the pope's recent non-apology for priest sex crimes.

"Hey, it was the 60s, everybody was doing crazy stuff!"

Day in and day out we are told by popey himself as well as religious leaders around the world that RELIGION is the source of true morality, that we atheists have no moral guide, etc. Religion should be BETTER than the secular morality of the time. It should be held to a higher standard, because its leaders (and the vast majority of its followers) think that it IS a higher standard. "Everybody was doing it" pretty much puts that lie to rest, don't you think?

[laconicsax]

36. Yep.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2234

[struggle4progress]

31. The NSW report was discussed in the story you linked in your OP: "The Catholic Church's adoption

agency has previously apologised for misguided, unethical or unlawful practices, after an inquiry by a New South Wales Parliamentary committee in 2000"

[laconicsax]

32. So fucking what?

What is it about this story that compells you to excuse the behaviors here? They were heavily involved in the trafficking of at least 150,000 newborns. Pardon me if I don't think an apology counts for much when compared to the scope of the crime.

IIRC, Bernie Madoff apologized too. At least he faced real consequences for his actions.

[struggle4progress]

34. So I'm not sure why you, in #26, label the 2000 NSW report a "distraction"

[laconicsax]

35. Of course you don't. n/t

[struggle4progress]

37. Translation: "This isn't really a serious discussion but just game-playing"

[laconicsax]

38. No, that was something you said a while back.

I believe the exact quote was along the lines of "I think I engage in some discussions in this forum purely for the exercise and in hopes of clarifying my thinking"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=214&topic_id=275729&mesg_id=275933

The article I posted is about the Church making an apology in 2011 for a practice that was not limited to New South Wales. Your efforts to focus the discussion on an apology made eleven years ago in response to a report by the Parliament of NSW which shed some light on some of the human trafficking the Church did in that state only is a distraction from the facts that there have been no legal consequences for the Church and that the scope has far exceeded the 2000 report.

The article in the OP mentions a minimum of 150,000 children who were taken as part of a human trafficking scheme the Church participated in. That they apologized for a fraction of those cases eleven years ago is irrelevant to a discussion of the problem itself and a wholly insufficient consequence.

[onager]

39. Australia?! What about the OTHER forced adoptions?

Bologna, 1858: A police squad, acting on the orders of the Inquisitor, invades the home of a Jewish merchant, Momolo Mortara, wrenches his crying six-year-old son from his arms, and rushes him off in a carriage bound for Rome. His mother is so distraught that she collapses and has to be taken to a neighbor's house, but her weeping can be heard across the city.

With this terrifying scene--one that would haunt this family forever--David I. Kertzer begins his fascinating investigation of the dramatic kidnapping, and shows how this now obscure saga would eventually contribute to the collapse of the Church's temporal power in Italy.

As Edgardo's parents desperately search for a way to get their son back, they learn why he--out of all their eight children--was taken. Years earlier, the family's Catholic serving girl, fearful that the infant might die of an illness, had secretly baptized him (or so she claimed). Edgardo recovered, but when the story reached the Bologna Inquisitor, the result was his order for Edgardo to be seized and sent to a special monastery where Jews were converted into good Catholics.

The Inquisitor's justification for taking the child was based in Church teachings: No Christian child could be raised by Jewish parents. The case of Edgardo Mortara became an international cause célèbre. Although such kidnappings were not uncommon in Jewish communities across Europe, this time the political climate had changed. As news of the family's plight spread to Britain, where the Rothschilds got involved, to France, where it mobilized Napoleon III, and even to America, public opinion turned against the Vatican. Refusing to return the child to his family, Pope Pius IX began to regard the boy as his own child. The fate of this one boy came to symbolize the entire revolutionary campaign of Mazzini and Garibaldi to end the dominance of the Catholic Church and establish a modern, secular Italian state.

Above synopsis from David Kertzer's website, more here:

http://www.amazon.com/Kidnapping-Edgardo-Mortara-David-Kertzer/dp/0679768173

[laconicsax]

40. Oh, but that's all in the past.

Once something's already happened, it's best to remember that drawing attention to it accomplishes nothing.

[ButterflyBlood]

41. Stuff like this hit so hard when I was deciding I couldn't be a Catholic

The church was obviously not a force for good in the world nor was it carrying out God's willing. I wasn't going to defend it or make excuses about how the whole church wasn't like this every time I heard something disgusting. It wasn't just a few isolated incidents either.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

42. Why would they do such a thing?`

Why were the hospitals taking those babies away from their mothers? And why was the Catholic Church involved?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. Usually the women whose babies were taken fell into one of two categories:

1. Unmarried mothers, who had to be punished for their "sin"

2. Aboriginal women who gave birth to mixed race babies--who needed to be "saved" from their "savage" families

[ChadwickHenryWard]

45. So it was a matter of doctrine?

The Church was doing it because it believed, for religious reasons, that the mothers were unfit? There was no compelling secular interest as to why the children had to be confiscated?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. In those days, both religious and secular people thought unwed motherhood was shameful

and the policy with the Aborigines was just plain racism.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[moobu2]

47. I smell a Saint in the making

Maybe a nun who devoted her life to helping poor aborigines and was killed by a band of radical homosexuals who wanted to forces abortions on everybody or something.

[Thats my opinion]

53. When I lived in Australia i made a serious study of this issue.

It was a terrible raciest attack on native Australians. There were a significant number of mixed blood babies born to Aboriginal women. it was the policy of the state, not the church, to take these children from their mothers and put them in boarding schools--which were often staffed and owned by religious orders. The church did the caring of the kids, not the taking. It was national policy in this very secular society.

Some years later, led by a group of Anglicans, a massive report was produced by the government called, "The Stolen Generation." Every Australian either read the book or knew about it. It was a national disgrace during a racist era of Australian history. Not too different than the way America's slaves were treated.

In about 1995 the government issued an official apology. In the US that might not mean very much, but in Australia that is a big deal. Every church had in the entrance a "sorry book" which the members signed--hundreds of thousands of them (remember Australia has less than 16 million people. Efforts were made by church agencies to try and bring these children--now grown men and women, back to their families. I know of several cases where this was done.

If this post and some of the reactions is just another crack at the church, the posters just aren't aware of how this matter developed and what has happened since. It is a sorry episode in the history of that nation, but it was neither produced nor condoned by the churches. If they have any guilt it was in not severely protesting a national policy. But it was not "perpetrated by the church."

I wonder why it is news now. The apology and the sorry book happened at least 15 years ago.

[laconicsax]

55. Did you read the article?

This isn't just about the theft of aboriginal children, it's about the organized theft of at least 150,000 children of unwed mothers organized by Catholic agencies.

The reason I posted this here rather than in GD, is because the article is about a religious organization's involvement in a massive human trafficking scandal. I didn't write the headline, nor am I the editor who decided to publish the story.

Do you feel that this story isn't newsworthy?