This World, Ireland's lost babies: BBC2

fisgon

Just watched this from BBC2 last night. The same old stuff, but still stomach churning, some of the details jaw-dropping, about how the church organized adoptions of babies that they removed from unmarried mothers in the fifties and sixties.

In many cases they sold these babies, and made a good income from the transactions. The women themselves were treated as criminals in the mother and baby homes for having gotten pregnant, and in every case the babies were sent to Catholic homes in the States, some of whom of course turned out to harbour pedophiles. There was no vetting of the adoptive parents, apart from checking that they were good catholics and rich.

It is astounding to think that between 40 and 60 thousand babies were sent for adoption in this way in these decades, sold to American couples and given to respectable Irish ones. On top of that much of the adoption documentation was forged.

What gets me is that these people, the ones that were behind all of these forced adoptions, nuns, priests, the holier-than-thou of the country, have been the ones lecturing the rest of us about The Family for the last fifty years. The importance of The Family, while doing everything in their power to stop mothers and children being together, or even finding each other later. The mind boggles.

Atlantic Dawn

What is even more disturbing is the level of commercial adoption and commerical surrogacy that Irish people engage in to bring kids here, it's as bad as what went on here in the past, pure exploitation.

hotmail.com

It's being repeated at 10.15 PM tonight on RTE One.

hfallada

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

What is even more disturbing is the level of commercial adoption and commerical surrogacy that Irish people engage in to bring kids here, it's as bad as what went on here in the past, pure exploitation.

There is very little international adoption taking place any more. Places like Russia are no longer allowing countries like Ireland to adopt. Commercial surrogacy is consensual and legal in plenty of countries across the world. There is no exploitation if an American women decides to have a baby for payment for an Irish couple

diddley

Saw this earlier tonight... Very harrowing, and very disappointing at the end when the woman's son chose not to contact her again

DerekDGoldfish

diddley wrote: »

Saw this earlier tonight... Very harrowing, and very disappointing at the end when the woman's son chose not to contact her again

I disagree, while I very much abhor many of the historical adoption practices that took place in this country via the church and other agencies, as someone who was adopted I have absolutely no interest in meeting my "biological" parents.

The mother (and father) who raised me are my one and only parents and while I respect the sacrifice made by my "biological" parents if it was done so willingly and sympathise with the suffering they endured if it wasn't they are not my parents and I owe them nothing. Being a parent (or a child) is so much more than biology expecting people in their 20/30/40's who have been raised by other families to recognise you as their mother is unfair.

Baggy Trousers

Just watching this for the 1st time. Harrowing stuff.
I am shocked at how many of the children sold to America were subsequently abused.
I hope the Mother and Baby Inquiry does it's job. The church have essentially got away with criminality on a huge scale.
Fair play to the BBC for telling it as it was.

Agent Coulson

That was a heartbreaking watch.

grenache

The Church was and still is, the most immoral of organisations on these shores. The level of hurt and damage they have caused is quite astounding.