Reply #5: Australia hospitals apologize for forced adoptions

[struggle4progress]

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