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Forced adoption: public apologies from Gillard for adoption and from Cameron for everything.

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has just apologised for the policy of forced adoption that ended in 1982.

Here are a couple of interesting graphs.  The first is the proportion of births to unmarried mothers in Australia:

Sources: ABS, Births Australia (various years); Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics (1964, 1973).  Graph from  Families then and now..
The Australians use the term "ex-nuptial" for unmarried.  Ending forced adoption may have changed the proportion of children who were raised outside marriage from 5% to 30%. Was this a positive change for children?

The second is the adoption rate in Australia:

Source: Adoption in Australia
Statistics on Australia are hard to find so I will not include any data on the relative disadvantage suffered by children from single parent families etc.

Governments should deal in the average net good of a population and when we examine the data it is obvious that the issue of forced adoption was complex and was not a black and white issue.  The "net good" is not clear.

Although the "net good" is not clear, the research on the outcome of adoption has been clear for decades:

"research indicates that on a variety of outcome measures adopted children fare much better than those youngsters who are reared in institutional environments or in foster care.  Furthermore, adoptees do significantly better than those children who are reared by biological parents who are ambivalent about caring from them or, in fact, do not want them."  Brodzinsky 1993.

It is also clear that the earlier a child is adopted the better the chance of a successful outcome (Rushton 2004).

At a personal level it is sad to see how some of the women who suffered the punishment of forced adoption have been scarred for life.  The morality of forced adoption is difficult to assess after so many years.  Sadly modern morality moves flexibly from issue to entertaining issue so is really no guide to right or wrong (See Postmodernism-poststructuralism-postmarxism ). Certainly nothing can match the media display of a woman in tears, even a television picture of a once pretty, teenage girl from a poor, one parent family who had fallen into drug addiction and prostitution might not compete.  I am not advocating forced adoption, I am just pointing out that nothing can match the media display of a woman in tears.  An individual's story on the media will trump wider social concerns every time.  The media is entirely amoral and politicians will shed public tears if this brings them extra votes.


So, we have an apology for a policy that occurred when Julia Gillard was a child.   Given that she had no involvement in these events and did not cause them or correct them it is strange that she should cloak herself in this month's holy aura of apologising for them.  The Australian State is not the State of 30 years ago and has no responsibility for historical actions of more than 25 years ago.

David Cameron, the British PM, also loves to apologise, he apologises for everything and anything from events in Northern Ireland to the NHS Scandals of previous governments.  This "apologitis" has been spotted by The Independent Newspaper and ordinary English people are getting sick of it.


Postscript

The apparent effect of ending forcible adoption on births outside marriage is so strong that it would be interesting to see if this applied outside Australia.  The graph below is the data for percentage of births outside marriage in the UK:

See BBC Article
Coerced or forced adoption ended in the mid 1970s in England.  Although the "permissive society" of the 1960s is usually blamed for the large numbers of babies born outside wedlock it looks as if it was forced adoption that terrorised young girls into waiting until they were married.  The extent to which this policy was "evil" depends upon the extent to which having a baby outside of marriage/stable partnership damages the child and society. 

See also:

Do you have good intentions?

The Mau Mau, Tutu and the limits of legal liability

Postmodernism-poststructuralism-postmarxism

The London Riots and the Mediocracy

The BBC Guide to postmodern journalism

Cameron appears to be a moron: Kashmir and the USA






References

Brodzinsky, D.M. 1993. The Future of Children.  Adoption Vol 3. No 1.

Families then and now. Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Kelly, S. (2000) Adoption in Australia- An Overview. Family Futures : Issues in Research and Policy 7th Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference
Sydney, 24-26 July 2000

Rushton, A. 2004.  A Scoping and Scanning Review of Research on the Adoption of Children Placed from Public Care. Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry 2004 9: 89 DOI: 10.1177/1359104504039768

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