Tag Archives: forced adoption

Forced adoptions – not quite what it seems

By Mary Reid | Fri 19th June 2026 - 3:02 pm

Yesterday the Church of England apologised for the part it played in forced adoptions in the past. Some years ago the Catholic Church issued a similar apology.

Earlier this week we heard that the Government is also planning to issue an apology, when the Education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, told the Education Select Committee:

The prime minister will have more to say on this shameful period in our history, reflecting the gravity of what has happened. But here and now, let me say to all of those affected, you will get the apology that you so profoundly deserve.

It is quite right that these three institutions should recognise the distress and harm caused by their actions.

However I want to bring a more nuanced understanding to the issue. We are talking about the time from the end of World War II to the mid 70s – the period that I grew up in. I can remember clearly how different the attitudes of society were then from today.

For context, in the 40s and 50s reliable contraception was not available. When the contraceptive pill was offered by the NHS in the mid 60s it was only prescribed to married women – I asked my doctor for it and he reluctantly prescribed it exactly three months before my wedding, so I could “get used to it”.

Until the Abortion Act in 1967 abortion was always a crime. I can remember a girl in my class at school having a back street abortion, and how I reacted in horror at the way this was carried out.

There was no social service support for unmarried mothers (the term always carried judgemental overtones), and it was not uncommon for parents to throw their daughter out if she became pregnant. She would not be able to just go and live with her boyfriend, even if he wanted to, mainly because couples never lived openly together if they were not married. No landlord would rent them a room.

A hurried shotgun wedding was one solution, but only if both were over 16, and then only if their parents gave permission (up to the age of 21). And this would only work if he was old enough to bring in enough money for the young family to survive.

Occasionally the grandmother would agree to bring up the child as her own, but this was by no means universal and required some subterfuge.

So perhaps it is understandable that the broad attitude of society was to discourage girls from having sex outside marriage, given the serious impact of pregnancy. Of course, it was always the girls who bore the consequences, so they were always blamed. However, what is not clear from a modern perspective is the level of shame involved. Shame which made it often impossible for a pregnant girl to attend school, shame which settled on the girl’s family, shame which labelled the child as illegitimate.

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Forced adoption: mothers demand Government apology

By Mary Reid | Fri 15th July 2022 - 10:01 am

A report published today from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights highlights the cruelty of forced adoptions in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Many women who were went through this, both as mothers or as the adopted children, are now calling for an apology from the Government.

You can download the latest report here: The Violation of Family Life: Adoption of Children of Unmarried Women 1949–1976

As Lib Dem Voice’s resident oldie, I can remember those days. I find it difficult to explain in these more liberal times that negative attitudes towards unmarried mothers ran right across society back then. As it happens, the Chair of the Committee is Harriet Harman, who was a near contemporary of mine at University, so she will also have recollections of life at the time.

The post-war years up until the mid 60s was a period of austerity, as the country recovered both economically and emotionally. Dramas set in that time often project today’s liberal values onto the period setting, assuming that people really were as sexually liberated as they are today but just hid it. I can assure you that was not the case. Not only was there a huge fear of getting pregnant without reliable contraception, but the opportunities for sex were limited for many young people, many of whom lived at home until they married. Couples simply didn’t live together, and girls were expected to be virgins at their weddings. There was huge shame associated with a pregnancy outside marriage.

If a young woman became pregnant she had three options – an illegal abortion, a so-called “shotgun” marriage or birth followed by adoption. Keeping the baby simply was not an option. I knew several girls who chose to have an abortion, got married straight away or whose babies were adopted, but I cannot remember anyone who kept their baby. It would have been impossible to live independently with a baby or young child as there were no benefits available, no jobs and no childcare.

As the report says

The experiences of the mothers and their children are at the centre of this inquiry. They did not, as is often said, give their children away. Unmarried women who found themselves pregnant during this period faced secrecy and shame from the earliest stages. Those who would have seized the chance to keep their sons and daughters with them and brought them up themselves did not have the opportunity to do so. Societal and familial pressures, and the absence of support contributed to thousands of children being taken from loving mothers and placed for adoption.