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Australian PM apologizes for forced adoptions

By Rod McGuirk CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered a historic national apology in Parliament to the thousands of unwed mothers who were forced by government policies to give up their babies for adoption over several decades. More than 800 people affected by the policy cried and cheered as they listened […]

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Gillard delivers apology to victims of forced adoption

By: ABC.net Prime Minister Julia Gillard has delivered a national apology to victims of forced adoption practices that were in place in Australia from the late 1950s to the 1970s. More than 800 people affected by forced adoptions gathered at the Great Hall in Canberra for the historic occasion. “Today, this Parliament, on behalf of […]

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‘It was so painful’: Forced-adoptions conference calls for federal inquiry

By: Sarah Boesveld For Bev Colasimone MacDonald, it was a comfort to be in the same room with several other mothers who surrendered their children to Canadian maternity homes decades ago. But even so, as she listened to their stories and spoke about her 16-year-old self — alone in a home for unwed mothers in […]

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United Church of Canada to hold mirror to its role in forced adoptions as families push for national inquiry

By: Kathryn Blaze Carlson The United Church of Canada is poised to strike a special task force dedicated to uncovering historic forced adoption practices, just as a national group prepares for an unprecedented conference next week that it hopes will catapult the topic squarely on to the public agenda and pressure the federal government to […]

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United Church archives ground zero in search for evidence of forced adoptions

By: Kathryn Blaze Carlson The 4,500-square-foot vault is a temperature-controlled former television studio, maintained at a precise 18 C with a relative humidity of 30%. The shelved boxes — all 23,000 of them — are made of acid-free cardboard and contain information that dates at least as early as 1792. These glassed-in premises on the […]

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Presbyterians to probe maternity homes in wake of Post forced adoption revelations

By: Kathryn Blaze Carlson The Presbyterian Church in Canada has launched an internal review of its historic maternity home practices, becoming the third church to do so since the National Post last month began an investigation into coerced and forced adoptions targeting unmarried mothers between the 1940s and 1980s. Stephen Kendall, the clerk of the […]

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‘These women didn’t know their options’: Ontario urged to consider inquiry into coerced adoptions

By: Kathryn Blaze Carlson Ontario’s NDP urged the Dalton McGuinty government Wednesday to look at launching an inquiry into the province’s historic adoption practices in the wake of accusations from women who say they were coerced by social agencies, medical workers and churches into giving up their children. “I would urge the Minister of Children […]

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Spanish nun accused of stealing babies in another forced adoption scandal

By Cristina Fuentes-Cantillana MADRID — An elderly Spanish nun appeared in court on Thursday to face charges of stealing babies, after claims by hundreds of women that their infants were taken from them at birth and given away in illegal adoptions. Doctors, nurses and religious workers at several clinics and hospitals in Spain are alleged […]

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What the #!%*? Is anybody investigating the allegations of forced adoptions across Canada?

By: Kathryn Blaze Carlson In this occasional feature, the National Post tells you everything you need to know about a complicated issue. Today, Kathryn Blaze Carlson looks at what’s next in the push for an investigation into forced adoptions targeting unmarried women between the 1940s and 1980s. Q: We’ve been hearing about this issue for […]

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Your baby is dead: Mothers say their supposedly stillborn babies were stolen from them

By: Kathryn Blaze Carlson This is how the woman, then young, remembered the August day in 1963 on which she gave birth to her illegitimate daughter: She was in an Edmonton hospital; the doctor ordered she receive an injection. She blacked out, and when she started to come to, a male voice said: “knock her […]

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