AustLit

'On 21 March 2013, the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard made the National Apology for Forced Adoptions at Parliament House in Canberra. It was a comprehensive statement to the mothers, fathers, and children who were affected by the policies and practices of decades past, when women who were pregnant outside of marriage were sometimes “encouraged,” shamed, cajoled, or blackmailed by social workers, medical staff, religious people or other authorities into signing away their baby or babies. Couples who were unable to have their children “naturally” because of infertility received these babies and brought them up as if they were their own. Some told their children they had been adopted and some did not; the advice varied according to the time and place and institution. The mothers were often told to “get on with their lives” as if no baby had been born to them.' (Introduction)