Give us back our Baby Story.Weekend Australian Magazine October 30-31, 2010.

Story by Caroline Overington.
Weekend Australian Magazine, October 30-31, 2010.
On March 31st 2005, a girl was born at a Sydney hospital. Her head was
considered larger than normal. The girl was born with hydrocephalus, or
fluid on the brain. She would need an operation. The parents, Chinese born
Australian citizens held great store in traditional Chinese remedies. They
were suspicious of the western system of medicine. They were suspicious of authorities, after all they had escaped here because of Tiananmen Square!

“Mr Lee” went to the public library to look up hydrocephalus and he was
spooked by what he had read. The website made it plain that his daughter’s
head would have to be cut open and a shunt inserted to drain fluid from
the brain into the abdomen. Mr Lee was full of doubt about the procedure.
He asked the neurosurgeon if his daughter would die if he did not operate.
The surgeon said no but she could suffer from serious complications. As
his daughter was only one day old and her head had already shrunk from
53cm to 48cm he didn’t want the operation on the first day, he wanted to
wait a week.

What happened next was extraordinary.
State welfare services stepped in and took the baby into state care and wheeled her away for surgery.
Her parents never saw her again, but not because she had died.

THE STATE WELFARE SYSTEM NEVER GAVE HER BACK.

This child was removed from her Chinese parents because they did not
consent to an operation on her brain on the first day.

The child was given to foster parents who five years later, 2010, wanted
to call this child their own; but she still had biological parents who had
been fighting to get her back.
An adoption order was placed before Judge George Palmer of the Supreme Court. He is a Father, Grandfather and a devout Catholic.

The adoption of the child was granted to the foster parents.

This is only the outline of the story.
Mr Lee and his wife have three children.
It seems Mr Lee has to prove he is a good parent instead of the court
having to prove he is not!

Here is a reply to “Give us Back Our Baby.”
by Jan Kashin from Apology alliance.

In NSW again we have the State acting as “parents and guardian of newborns.”
At the hospital where the mother gave birth, we have security guards
stopping Mr Lee from taking his daughter home. And do I hear the NSW
Department of Community Services saying, “Everything we have done
has been with the little girl’s “best interest at heart”?

Where have I heard this story before?

Out of the mouths of thousands of young women from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s,
70’s and 80’s who had been marginalised because they were giving birth and
were not yet married.
They were told the police would be sent after them if they ran away;
shackled to labour ward beds or tied their arms with bandages to the side
of the bed lest they try to see or touch their newborns, hounded them from
nursery windows while they tried to glimpse their babies.

I thought these practices were done with but had a rude awakening on Saturday
morning as I read the plight of Mr Lee, his wife and their three children.

I believe Justice George Palmer has condemned the child to a life of
genealogical bewilderment and anger. Her parents, her brother, sister
and herself are destined for a life of anguish, unresolved grief, loss,
pain, suffering and emotional trauma.

In a word they are all condemned to despair.

To take a person’s baby and to then expect them to rationally appear
before a court while in a state of enraged trauma is part of the adoption
game. Traumatise the parents so they will not be able to think straight
while grief overwhelms them.

“The new marginalized” can now include those not proficient in the
language and laws of their new country- so look out “boat people “asylum
seekers of all nationalities, immigrants of all description, mothers in
detention centres, and those who practice Chinese medicine, you are on
notice.
Could Linda Burney’s Department have your infant in her sights to pick up the shortfall in numbers of newborns for adoption in the State of NSW? We hear complaints about the adoption numbers being so low, but no-one states the reason – we are no longer stealing thousands of newborns from their single mothers.

So will this be the new baby grab? Will this be legalised by the courts; facilitated by the hospitals and enforced by the police? Many unanswered questions!
Why was the baby not returned to her parents five years ago after the operation? She had competent parents who wanted her. The foster parents wanted to adopt her, well her real parents wanted to keep her, what about their rights?
To say the child has got used to her new parents, what a travesty - that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.
One last point there are many children who grow up with a set of parents who separate, how would the community feel if one parent said to the other parent and family you can no longer have contact with your child because it would disturb him or her.
I believe the taken baby and her family, that is five new Australians, will end up costing the Federal Government heavily in medical assistance for the psychological damage it has caused by forcibly separating them, once again with that worn old justification ‘in the child’s best interest’

It is my opinion that Justice Palmer’s ignorance of the damage caused by adoption has created a preventable tragedy.
An immoral practice such as this is NEVER in the victim’s best interest.