Presentation by Origins Inc. NSW.
At Parliament House, Melbourne, Victoria at the Inaugural Meeting to offically launch the Incorporation of Origins Vic.
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I have borrowed the title of my paper from a wonderful book written by american author Ricki Solinger - it's title is:

Wake up little Suzie -

I chose that name because I believe it's time we did too.

To most people the word adoption conjures up warm and fuzzy feelings of an unwanted child, willingly surrendered by some obscure mother to be rescued by loving adoptive parents to whom the child remains ever grateful for being saved from his otherwise uncertain fate. This transaction was seen as being in the best interest of the child - or so the myth goes.

Speaking of myths:

Just as Dorothy discovered while travelling along the yellow brick road in search of her real parents - That Nothing Is As It Seems - so too did we discover that in adoption - nothing is as it seems either.

With adoption itself a legal lie, its success being dependent on denial of truth and the need to lie, with the unwed mother being lied to about her rights to her own child, with the lie that she made a decision when no option was offered, with the lie that her child is not her child, with the necessary lie of the child being unwanted to enable adopters to feel comfortable about taking another womans child, with the lie that the substitute mother is the real mother (as if born to her), with the lie that the child should be grateful for being saved when he was socially stolen to cure his adoptive parents sterility so that They could better fit into society, with the lie that his birth certificate implies his adopters gave birth to him, with his birth certificate a blatant lie, with the lie that his mother is not his mother, that his reality is not his reality,

With the lie that adoption was in the childs best interest when adopted children are overrepresented in mental health facilities and are being diagnosed with severe attention deficit disorders, severe anxiety levels, major abandonment anxiety, severe dissociative disorders, symptoms of multiple personality disorders, post traumatic stress disorders and schizophrenia, are at high risk of suicide, and do suicide in high numbers, when this perpetual pretence forces them to live the schizophregenic existance of denying their own reality as a coping mechanism for their emotional survival, which the construct of adoption demands of them.

With fertility, septic abortions and widespread clamydia being the consequences of illicit sexual activity resulting in illegitimacy and sterility, even the concept of punishing the so-called immoral and rewarding the so-called moral was yet another lie. Now that's an awful lot of lying going on.

Ultimately, even the promise of a perfect life for our children was yet another lie. Upon reunion, the astounding level of emotional neglect, violence against, psychological and sexual abuse of our children from infancy and beyond bears witness to that deceit.

It therefore comes as no surprise to learn that in their rapacious quest for newborns, the adoption industry systematically lied to unsupported mothers about their rights, their options, financial assistance, and legally available alternatives that would enable them to keep their babies or at least to allow a free and informed decision to be made as the law decreed.

It is this last particular lie that I will be focusing on today.

Responsibility Toward The Unwed Mother

Perhaps the best way to begin this paper is by doing what the adoption experts have never bothered to do for over 40 years - and that is - to actually read the Child Welfare regulations - in relation to the treatment of unwed and unsupported mothers - which had been introduced after the Mace v Murray case of 1953 to protect the unwed mother from exploitation, and to enable her to make a free and informed decision about her babies fate - that she could live with for the rest of her life without regret and without redress. The regulations explain that:

"A mother giving a consent must be fully aware of the import of her action and, must be emotionally and mentally able to appreciate all the implications of such consent. A consent should not be taken if there is any suggestion of indecisiveness or that she has not given sufficient consideration to the matter".

"To avoid any misunderstanding or any suggestion that the mother was misled or uninformed, District Officers are instructed to explain fully to the mother, before taking the consent, the facilities which are available to help her keep the child. These include homes licenced under the Child Welfare Act for the private care of children apart from natural parents, financial assistance to unmarried mothers under section 27 of the Child Welfare Act, admission to State control until the mother is in a position to care for her child, and assistance to affilliate the child and obtain a maintenance order against the putative father."

"When all of these aids have been rejected, the officer is expected to explain to the mother the full implications of the act of surrendering her child. (this includes warning her of the risk of dire future regret if she decides on adoption). Only when a mother has considered these, and still wishes to proceed with the surrender for adoption should the consent be accepted. "

In 1968 the Department of Social Welfare reported on benefits available to unmarried mothers - under Allowances for Children. Section 27 aid, explaining that:

"Not all unmarried mothers wish to have their child adopted and in many cases have no family at hand to help with the care of the child. This embryo family group has an important mother-child relationship that needs both support and nurture and the Department assists the mother by acting for her in affiliation proceedings and by the granting of regular allowances once the mother's eligibility has been established."

"The services of the social aid branch are also used in special cases to supply a layette, special foods and milk. Many unmarried mothers call upon the services of the Dept to act for them in court to obtain an affiliation order. There is no charge for this service."

Although it has been generally assumed that financial assistance to unwed mothers was first introduced by the Whitlam Government in 1973, finally enabling mothers the option of keeping their babies, it seems that all he did was to advertise the already available but unknown benefit to single mothers, bringing it into line with the CPI.

Another factor making this negligence a human rights crimes issue - in outlining the fact that the adoption industry was fully aware of the emotional harm they were inflicting upon young mothers by forcing adoption upon them, but yet continued, in 1977 the then Attorney General Mr Frank Walker received a report from the then Minister for Community Services Mr Rex Jackson summarising the adoption workers' duty of care towards the unwed mother after being commissioned to investigate allegations of corruption by one mother in having been forbidden to see her baby and of not being warned of the severe mental anguish she would suffer in having her child taken for adoption in 1968, some nine years earlier. This most damning report summarises in the Ministers own words that:

"It has to be accepted that the surrendering of a child for adoption inevitably means for the natural mother a momentous decision which she may later bitterly regret, It is one of the tasks of the Social Worker and the Allotment Officer who has dealings with a natural mother before and after her confinement, to counsel her wisely about the options open to her, to ensure that she understands what she is doing if she decides to surrender her child for adoption and this includes her understanding that (she may grievously regret her decision later) and to support her, sensibly and kindly, in her decision once it is irrevocably made."

The hypocracy of this report is that not one mother Australia-wide has ever been warned of the grievous consequences of adoption, in fact quite the contrary - being instead railroaded into adoption by being told it was in their child's best interest.

Obviously aware all along that they were committing crimes against us that would grievously effect our lives forever, it was social workers themselves at the Women's Hospital Crown Street Sydney who actually briefed the Minister on what their duty of care toward the unmarried mother was meant to be. This same hospital was alone responsible for separating over 40,000 babies from their mothers, being almost half of all adoptions in NSW.

Instead of following the rule, the industry put their own moral, not to mention financial imperatives, above the law and introduced its own separation practices, effectively turning the legal process of adoption into the act of abduction by implementing the following procedures of:

1. Systematically denying mothers all knowledge of their above mentioned legal rights and options.

2. By using both overt and covert methods of coercion to obtain consents.

3. by actually promoting adoption - rather than following their legal fiduciary duty of having to warn mothers' of the potential harm such a course of action may cause them.

4. By introduced de-humanising labour ward procedures of interfering in the birthing process between a mother and child by violently snatching newborns from their mothers wombs during birth, at a time when its mother was still in labour, bound by stirrups, often shackled by her wrists to the bed while awaiting the expulsion of the placenta (see following video).

5. By introducing the inhumanity of forbidding mothers to see their babies by avoiding eye contact between mother and child to prevent bonding (which has culminated in a violent psychic trauma from which neither mother nor her child is ever able to recover) the belief being that if a mother saw her child at birth she would be less likely to give it up. The mother remaining in a psychologically pregnant state having never completed the birthing process, and being the possible reason why an estimated 60% of such mothers never conceived again.

6. By preventing lactation by using the synthetic hormone Stilboestrol, administered in three times the legal dosage and known since 1971 to be carcinogenic, or by the method of breast binding. All without written consent from the mother.

7. By sedating mothers during labour with lytic cocktails consisting of phenobarbitone, Pethidine, Sparine, Largactyl, and postnatally with hypnotic memory altering barbiturates such Pentobarbital, Sodium Amytil, Methadone, Heroin, and Chloral Hydrate.

8. By hiding babies from their own mothers within the confines of the hospital, in staff rooms, in linen closets, in hidden nurseries - therefore denying mothers free access to their own babies.

9. By separating and transporting mothers by ambulance, whilst heavily sedated to different hospitals without their babies and without their permission.

10. By forbidding mothers to see their babies until they sign a consent (legally classified as inducement to sign a contract).

11. By forcing mothers to sign adoption consents while still in hospital and forbidding them to leave until their records were marked with the term "socially cleared", indicating that they had signed a consent and could then legally leave the hospital.

12. By forcing mothers to sign a consent on day five when day five was only the earliest time her signature could legally be taken.

13. By not informing a mother of health problems her newborn child may have suffered associated with his birth (this could automatically invalidate her consent).

14. By taking un-enforcable (and therefore invalid) consents from minors - their consents only becoming valid upon reaching the age of majority which was age 21 - reducing in the early 1970's to 18 years.

15. By not informing mothers of the 30 day revocation period.

16. By preventing mothers their legal right of revocation within their legally permitted time by advising them that their child had already been adopted when it was merely an interim placement and not legally binding.

17. By not providing professional counselling facilities either prior to during or after confinement.

This was adoption Australia-style,

No other country in the world implemented such violence upon the unmarried mother and her child quite to the extent as was carried out in our country.

Aware of the emotional harm caused to mother and child in perverting nature. Russia for instance counselled mothers out of adoption. Sweden stopped the adoption of children in 1966 (although inter-country adoptions are now legal). The U.K. Refused to allow a mother to sign a consent until 6 weeks after the birth, realising a mother was not in a fit state to make any decision until the post partum period had elapsed.

For the same reason mothers in New Zealand were forbidden to sign a consent while still in hospital but had to wait a clear three weeks after confinement. Non English speaking countries had no adoption. Indian mothers would rather kill their newborn girl babies and send them to heaven rather than live in the hell of never knowing where their children were.

Even supposedly less civilised third world countries and islanders look after their own, being less savage than our nation has been to unwed mothers. Only the United States whose history is steeped in the trade of human flesh, continues to prey upon and exploit the poor and under-privileged, by using the almighty dollar to meet their own greed.

Only English speaking countries it seems have no concept of the importance of blood relatedness, and kinship. In a recent conference in Brisbane I asked a professor from the Netherlands, an expert on adoption trauma, if he could give an indication of the level of trauma associated with taking newborns during labour and forbidding mother and child to have eye contact in order to prevent bonding?

He was horrified, claiming to have never heard of such a dreadful concept and therefore no research could have been conducted on the trauma it would cause to a child, but was certain that it would have a dreadful effect on the mother.

We may well ask how this could have occurred in a so-called civilised society? Explained simply:

While the Government introduced regulations and legislation into the Child Welfare Act, based on recommendations from the World Health Organisation as well as English adoption law, designed to enable a mother to keep her child - it simultaneously turned a blind eye while the adoption industry followed a new trend in adoption practices coming out of the United States, designed to punish the mother by taking her child at birth, thus effectively contravening its own legislation.

These practices were instigated by a social cleansing campaign based on a predicted trend coming out of the USA, implemented to eradicate white unwed mothers from society by using their newborns as a cure for infertility.

Based on research conducted into mothers who kept and mothers who gave up their babies, in 1961 Clark Vincent explains the propaganda on which the new Adoption Act in Australia would become based, and how the term,"in the best interest of the child", would become the tool used to pry newborns away from their own mothers at birth to supply the frenzied demand by childless couples for newborns. Vincent's prediction read that:

"If the demand for adoptable babies continues to exceed the supply... Then it is quite possible that, in the near future, unwed mothers will be "punished" by having their children taken from them right after birth." He explains that:

"A policy like this would not be executed - nor labelled explicitly as "punishment". Rather, it would be implemented by such pressures and labels as - scientific findings, the best interest of the child, rehabilitation of the unwed mother, and the stability of family and society."

Psychological Abuse & And Mind Control

According to their own documentation, the adoption industry's main concern was the effect of infertility within marriage, with the overall success of newborn adoption being based solely upon meeting the needs of childless couples - the premise being that emotional issues pertaining to infertility could be alleviated by providing an infant young enough to be "just as if" born to the adopting couple. In more recent years the industries concern has been compounded seeing itself as being in "crisis" as a result of adoptable babies being in short supply. In a less savage society it is the abandonment of babies that would be seen as the "crisis".

Their minor concern (using their own words) was in locating enough unwed mothers, and finding ways of getting the baby from her in order to meet their demand. It meant the implementation of psychological abuse, and mind control.

Irrespective of both the law and mother nature, adoption experts decided to change the goal posts where, rather than offering her legally available resources to enable her to keep her child, it was decided that to enable a mother to live for the rest of her life without her child it was imperative that:

"she must come to see her child as being a separate individual from herself with needs of his own."

Having been already earmarked for distribution to more entitled parents, abusive psychological cruelty was implemented to remind her that she was simply carrying the baby for its "real parents", with the promise that she could have "children of her own" when she married, whereas an estimated 60% were never able to never conceive again. Making the adoption industry both instrumental in causing infertility in otherwise fertile young women, as well as liars.

Further deceit was warning young mothers, (if the baby's father remained on the scene) that he would come to hate both her and the baby if she forced him into marriage - and worse - she would end up hating her own baby if she kept him.

Perhaps the most common practices was to use positive affirmations to coerce frightened and humiliated young mothers into believing that it was "in her child's best interest" to be surrendered for adoption - and any good mother who really loved her baby would want what was best for the child. To want to keep the baby was considered to be selfish and certain indication that she was a "bad mother".

Other tactics were not as subversive. Mothers were tricked, lied to, restrained to beds, coerced and bullied into signing blatantly obvious, uninformed consents. Consents were often taken prior to - and immediately upon birth, and post dated to accommodate the legal requirement of leaving three clear days before signing. Others signed empty documents that would be typed in by the officer at a later date. (Given that the babies name wasn't asked for until the consent was signed - if your babies name is typed on the consent you have signed an empty document).

Using oppression, fear, inducement to sign a document, trauma and sedation to acquire signatures, and without an informed decision anywhere in sight, made for easy pickings to enable this grand baby larceny.

These practices only began to change after 1982, when the Health Commission of NSW (having smelt a rat within the industry six years earlier) eventually distributed a warning to every hospital within the State to clean up their act and get an adoption policy together quick smart - as their practice of forbidding mothers access to their babies was contravening the Adoption of Children Act 1965 on mental health and legal grounds.

Two years later in 1984 a parliamentary report called Options for Reform, recommended that the consequences of adoption be provided to unwed mothers and this time it was to be in writing. But that's still yet to occur. In light of all that is known about the severe emotional and lifelong consequences to both the mother and her child in being separated at or soon after birth, the Catholic Adoption Agencies continue to promote adoptions to Catholic school girls - as a means of solving her problem should it arise, not to mention keeping their funding coming in from Government coffers.

With an average of 6,000 infants being adopted each year Australia wide, and peaking in 1972 at 10,400, the enormity of this scandal is inconceivable - given that these abuses of young mothers and their children, in their various forms have been occurring since regulations were introduced into adoption practice in the early 1950's and re-enforced through legislation in 1965.

Social Betrayal

The sacred cow that adoption became, began at a time whereby the collective social conscience, in an effort to alleviate any guilt about sanctioning the permanent removal of a child from it's mother, colluded with the help of well designed propaganda to believe that adoption was in the child's best interest as the mother, they deemed, did not want her child.

The propaganda of the unwanted child theory was then introduced to help adoptive parents feel comfortable in taking another woman's baby, as the belief was that the substitute mother could not effectively parent the child without a sense of entitlement.

Once the baby had disappeared forever, the concept of relinquishment was so at odds with mother nature herself, that society had to condemn the de-babied mother as being less than human for doing what was socially expected of her, and so, in order to protect their collective guilt the mother was labelled with a stigma far greater than becoming a sole parent could ever have been. The de-babied mother conveniently became

"the sort of mother who could give away her own flesh and blood," effectively condemning her to eternal silence.

Disorders such as psychic splitting, much the same way as the mind of the child incest abuse victim splits off from reality in order to survive her trauma. Then there was post traumatic stress disorder, psychogenic amnesia, multiple personality disorder, severe dissociative disorders, long term pathogenic grief, learned helplessness disfunction and major depression.

All directly resulting from such severe trauma associated with such a violent act.

Conclusion

But what about the best interest of the children?

After forty years of trading in and exploiting newborns - did the interest of the child finally become of any concern to the adoption industry at all? The Australian Government adoption statistics document, titled 'Adoptions in Australia" has declared as recently as 1992 that:

"In recent years the emphasis in adoption has changed from being a service for couples wishing to adopt a child, to being a service for children; the priority is now the welfare of the child." (1992)