Friday, March 5, 2010

West Australia to Apologise To Unwed Mothers

the WA Australian Government is preparing to apologise to mothers and
our children for past practices - this has just been announced by Dr.
Kim Haines on ABC radio today. The Labor Party has stated if the
government is sincere about its apology it should be made by the
Premier.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/05/2837450.htm


'Sorry' over babies taken from unwed mothers

The West Australian Government is set to become the first to publicly
apologise to mothers who were unlawfully separated from their babies
after giving birth out of wedlock.

from ABC Radio

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to WA. All the best to everyone Julie

Marilyn said...

Yes, we are feeling very proud and relieved to be the first in Australia to receive an apology.

We are sending our support to all those in other States so yours will also be forthcoming.

We always knew the day would come
even though many tried to deter us along the way.

Blessings,

Marilyn West Aussie.....

Anonymous said...

Problem is, Minister Hames is not apologizing for the unlawful practices. I know that for a fact. Anything less than an apology for the unlawful practices is lipservice.

Anonymous said...

Apologizing for what? Social forces? There is no admission of unlawful practices by Mr. Hames. An apology proceeding from such a basis is a payment of lip service only.

What about the unlawful removal of babies from the labour wards of this Nation, concerning which the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry (Releasing the Past) said:

7.61 Mothers argued that the practice denied their legal rights as guardian of the child. As explained above, the Health Commission stated that the mother was the legal guardian of the child until the signing of the consent form. Justice Richard Chisholm agreed that the mother remained guardian of the child until she gave consent and that preventing her from having access to the child prior to the consent would not have been authorized.

7.62 The Committee therefore believes that the practice of denying a mother access to her child prior to the signing of consent was unlawful. Those professionals who contributed to the process where access was denied were clearly acting unlawfully.

7.63 Whatever the rationale for the practice, the Committee believes that in all cases women should have been consulted about this issue prior to the birth and that a woman should not have been denied access to her child if she requested it. Therefore, failure to grant access constituted an unlawful and unethical action.[