Petition – Newfoundland

TO: THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF NEWFOUNDLAND:

WHEREAS: The Province of Newfoundland along with Children’s Aid Societies under their control, along with religious organizations that they funded did wilfully and knowingly prevent unmarried mothers in the Province of Newfoundland from staying with their children to nurture and mother them and instead exploited the fertility and trust of defenceless young mothers, by systematically denying them all knowledge of their legal rights and options: by using both overt and covert methods of coercion to obtain uninformed consents for adoption; by actually promoting adoption –all against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by Canada in 1948 which states:

Article 5 – No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 12 – No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks

Article 16 (3) – The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State

Article 25 (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services and the right to security in teh event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control

Article 25 (2) MOTHERHOOD AND CHILDHOOD ARE ENTITLED TO SPECIAL CARE AND ASSISTANCE. ALL CHILDREN, WHETHER BORN IN OR OUT OF WEDLOCK, SHALL ENJOY THE SAME SOCIAL PROTECTION

Article 5 All are equal before the law …and,

WHEREAS : The Province of Newfoundland participated financially in introducing de-humanizing procedures of incarcerating unmarried mothers in “Homes for Unwed Mothers” where their names were changed or disguised, their clothing removed, their movements restricted, their mail censored, their visitors censored, their self esteem eroded, and where they were systemically and continually groomed for adoption by CAS workers and others employed by the Province of Newfoundland by telling them that it was “in her child’s best interest” to be surrendered for adoption, and that “any mother who loved her baby would want the best for her child” and to want to keep her baby would be “selfish” and would indicate that she was a bad mother, and

WHEREAS : The Province of Newfoundland and its’ agencies introduced hospital procedures of segregating unmarried women from married women in hospital maternity wards, by introducing policies where unmarried mothers were left to labour alone, were restrained on delivery tables, by causing the devastating and irresolvable psychic trauma inherent in having introduced adoption policies which included the heinous act of interfering in the process of completing the very primal act of giving birth between a mother and child including forbidding eye contact between mother and child in delivery rooms and post partum (culminating in a violent trauma to the female psyche from which no mother is ever able to recover) by the use of pillows, sheets, drugs and other means, by preventing mothers from seeing and holding their own babies PRIOR any consent forms were signed, by moving babies to other locations therefore denying mothers access to their own babies PRIOR to consents for adoption, by lying to mothers about the location of their babies therefore preventing mothers from access to their babies PRIOR to consents for adoption, by preventing lactation by administering to mothers the cancer causing drug Stilboestrol , and barbaric breast binding without consent of the mother and PRIOR to consent to adoption, by taking consents from minors with no legal representation for mothers or their children, by using oppression, fear, duress and lies to obtain uninformed consents, by not disclosing to mothers their rights to financial support by the Province, by not disclosing to mothers their right to hold, feed, nurture, support, and stay with their children, by not advising mothers of their rights to visit their children while in the care of Children’s Aid Societies, by not advising mothers of the severe lifelong psychological harm to surrendering mothers and their children inherent in adoption separation which was known to the government and its’ agencies at the time, by not offering lifelong counselling to surrendering mothers, by the inhumane treatment of telling surrendering mothers that they were not real mothers, but only “birthmothers” which continues in government writings, legislation, and websites today, and by telling mothers that they would forget about their babies and replace them with other babies at a later time, , and by sending young woman back into their schools and communities one week later, bleeding from birth, breasts bound, traumatized, and told never to tell a living soul by those employed by the Government of Newfoundland following the policies and procedures approved by the Government of Newfoundland.

WHEREAS: based on supply and demand, the adoption of newborns relied on perverting the principles of the laws of nature in treating “unwed mothers” as breeders, devoid of human instincts and emotions, giving rise to the diabolical concept that total strangers known as “deserving infertile couples” were entitled to claim an already developing fetus, or one yet to be conceived, as their own, and that their rights and feelings were and still remain more important than those of a natural mother, and

WHEREAS: so permanently traumatized by such inspeakable inhumanity against them, and being then accused of having given away their own babies and not caring about them, and being conditioned to “keep the secret”, the young mothers themselves were unable to give voice to their horror, thus the public continues to remain unaware of the workings of this system, and

WHEREAS: The child in whose best interest the adoption was meant to be, having been traumatized by having been snatched by his mother’s womb as if a living stillbirth, was to live with the pain being led to believe his own mother willingly gave him away and the stigma of being labelled – an unwanted child now “rescued” by Adopters when in fact was a child in no need of rescue as his mother’s only crime was that of being unmarried.

WHEREAS : These same mothers today continue to be traumatized to such an extent that some of them actually place vetoes on registries to prevent their own child from contacting or finding them as they have kept the secret for such a long period of time that they are unable to face and relive the unspeakable horror and trauma that they have lived with their entire lives; or to speak their personal truth even to those closest to them as they have kept this unspeakable secret as they were told to do; and this trauma is interpreted by the Province of Newfoundland as proof that these mothers do not wish to know their children, and perpetuates the “birthmother” myth by using these trauma victims as their proof, and ,

WHEREAS: These actions constitute coercion, undue influence, duress, abduction, professional negligence, breach of duty of care, assault, improper consent taking, and having violated the rights of mothers to be entitled to special protection as mothers under the UN Charter adopted by Canada, and

WHEREAS : Those involved are guilty of major human rights crimes, and major civil rights crimes of huge proportions to which the government and their agencies are now fully accountable.

WE THE UNDERSIGNED PETITION THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF NEWFOUNDLAND AS FOLLOWS:

To immediately call for a full Parliamentary Inquiry into the Adoption Practices of the Province of Newfoundland both past and present and to abide by the findings of such inquiry.

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Only original signatures will be accepted in the legislature. Please help us get our inquiry!
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Please mail to:
Origins Canada
P.O. Box 144
Richmond Hill, Ontario
L4B 4R4