Illegal
Adoption Practices
Proof
of Coercion - in the Adoption Industry's Own Words
" Unwed mothers should be punished and they should be
punished by taking their children away." - Dr. Marion
Hilliard of Women's College Hospital, Toronto. Daily
Telegraph (November 1956)
"To the Province generally the great advantage and economy
of the Adoption Act can be realized when it is stated
that many of the children before their adoption were costing
five and six dollars a week for maintenance." - 35th Report
of the Superintendent of Neglected and Dependent Children
(Ontario, 1928)
".... if an unmarried child gives birth to a baby, those
circumstances alone ought to justify apprehension of the
baby before the baby leaves the hospital unless the unmarried
child mother can show that she has a viable plan for looking
after and rearing her baby." - "Board Review" for the
Child Welfare System (Canada, 1983) [NOTE: no mention
is made of ensuring that the mother has access to social
assistance, or that apprehending her baby violates her
basic human rights!]
The following quotes were provided courtesy of Karen Wilson
Buterbaugh:
- Evidence of the consumer demand they
fed by taking our babies, treating us as breeders:
"... the tendency growing out of the demand for babies
is to regard unmarried mothers as breeding machines...(by
people intent) upon securing babies for quick adoptions."
- Leontine Young, "Is Money Our Trouble?" (paper presented
at the National Conference of Social Workers, Cleveland,
1953)
". . . babies born out of wedlock [are] no longer considered
a social problem . . . white, physically healthy babies
are considered by many to be a social boon . . . " (i.e.
a valuable commodity..). - Social Work and Social Problems
(National Association of Social Workers, 1964)
"Because there are many more married couples wanting
to adopt newborn white babies than there are babies, it
may almost be said that they rather than out of wedlock
babies are a social problem. (Sometimes social workers
in adoption agencies have facetiously suggested setting
up social provisions for more 'babybreeding'.)" SOCIAL
WORK AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS, National Association of Social
Workers, (Out-of-print) copyright 1964
- how they justified the coercion and abductions:
"When a worker can see that, had the unmarried mother
wanted a baby for normal reasons, she would have fallen
in love, married, and had a child under normal circumstances,
the worker's problem begins to resolve itself..." OUT
OF WEDLOCK, Leontine Young.
". . . women having out-of wedlock children tend to be
rather disturbed people. While the American middle-class
girl flouting the conventions by an illegitimate pregnancy
may well be emotionally sicker than her English, working-class
cousins."- Jane Rowe, adoption social worker, 1950
- 1970
"White girls who have illegitimate babies by coloured
men are often emotionally ill as well as socially defiant."-
Jane Rowe, adoption social worker 1950 - 1970
"An agency has a responsibility of pointing out to the
unmarried mother the extreme difficulty, if not the impossibility,
if she remains unmarried, of raising her child successfully
in our culture without damage to the child and to herself
.... The concept that the unmarried mother and her child
constitute a family is to me unsupportable. There is no
family in any real sense of the word." Joseph H. Reid,
Principles, Values, and Assumptions Underlying Adoption
Practice, 1956 NAT'L CON. SOC. WORK.
" The fact that social work professional attitudes tend
to favor the relinquishment of the baby, as the literature
shows, should be faced more clearly. Perhaps if it were
recognized, workers would be in less conflict and would
therefore feel less guilty about their "failures" (the
kept cases)." - Social worker Barbara Hansen Costigan,
in her dissertation, "The Unmarried Mother--Her Decision
Regarding Adoption" (1964)
"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. A policy like
this would not be executed -- nor labeled explicitly --
as "punishment." Rather, it would be implemented through
such pressures and labels as "scientific findings," "the
best interests of the child," "rehabilitation of the unwed
mother," and "the stability of the family and society."
Unmarried Mothers, by Clark Vincent, 1961)
And from an adoption agency manual currently in use across
North America:
" OVERCOME OBJECTIONS AND STEREOTYPES
" Counselors must be trained to give women sound
reasons that will counter the desire to keep their babies.
One example is to reinforce the notion that it takes a strong,
mature woman to place a child for adoption. Honestly addressing
the issue of financial survival can be compelling as well.
Counselors must communicate that adoption can be an heroic,
responsible choice and that the child benefits tremendously
..." - From The Missing Piece: Adoption Counseling In
Pregnancy Resource Centers by Curtis J. Young. Family
Research Council (2000).
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