The idea that dignity has a unique significance in the world became prominent in the mid to latter end of the twentieth century, in relation to the forced adoption practices that were taking place between the 1950’s and 1980’s. Forced adoption is used to explain a situation where a parent is having their child forcibly removed without their given consent. The Australian government together with all state governments failed to provide unmarried mother with equal treatment to that of married mothers in Australian public hospitals. In my essay I will be discussing the false distinction between capacities of young unwedded mothers to raising their children compared to the married financially secure mothers, along with analysing the shame and guilt felt by the mothers of losing their baby’s with the national apology trying to restore their lost dignity. The Oxford English Dictionary describes dignity as the quality of being worthy or honourable; worthiness, worth, nobleness and excellence (Oxford Dictionary).During the time when forced adoptions in Australia were taking place, legislative changes emerged in the 1950s and consolidated in the 1960s enshrined the concept of adoption secrecy and the ideal of having a "clean break" from the birth mother. Adoption practices in Australia has undergone a great deal of change along with society's responses and views towards pregnancies outside of marriage and single motherhood. Until a section of legal, social and economic changes in the 1970s, unwed women who were pregnant were expected to give up their babies for adoption. The shame, guilt and silence that surrounded their pregnancies out of wedlock meant that these women were seen as unfit mothers. (Kenny et, al 2012). For many mothers the emotional and psychological damage of these policies stripped them of their own human dignity and will be felt for the rest of their lives. This topic is so critical is human dignity because the grief, trauma and loss they had to undergo during these experiences were felt by many mothers and they felt that they were in a "no-win" situation regarding their significant decision to raise their children. Mothers would have been explained if they kept the child they wouldn’t be giving their child the best chance for a happy life and that they were being selfish. To add to my point, the mothers had to face the reality of being stigmatised for being a single mothers and their child having titles such as "bastard” which completely stripped them from all dignity under the 1B quadrant being that they were not seen as having the human capacities to look after their babies. Nurses, doctors and case workers looking after these mothers would attempt to change the mothers choices and saying to them that they had no other option than to place their child for adoption and were given at times of extreme vulnerability. Saying things to the mothers such as they were not deserving, worthy, capable, or unfit of raising their own child in which I will discuss into greater detail in the essay of how the 2A Quadrant that Dignity of humans can be acquire or lost through a sense of self-worth and the dignity when they believe in my own worth in this case these women did not feel any self-worth at all. This topic although has to been seen in a multidimensional view of human dignity as all 4 quadrants of the approaches to grounding human dignity exist. To be human is to be multidimensional, and also to appeal to human dignity can lead to opposing conclusions that can be thought of in four different ways and these are sometimes set in opposition to one another. Human dignity is both something we already have and something we strive to acquire with multiple bases that all needs to be considered in the situation of forced adoptions.
The practice of forced adoptions makes a false distinction between the capacity of young, largely unwed mothers to raise their own children, and the capacity of married more financially secure mothers to do the same. The practice of forced adoption hindered these young mothers from demonstrating their innate dignity. The Australian governments treatment of single mothers during this period was one with utter neglect, abject indifference and completely illegal practices and behaviour towards mothers were taking place as punishment for them being unmarried. Abduction, kidnapping and breach of statutory law are examples of illegal behaviour for the hostile removal of newborns from these unwedded mothers and completely stripped these women from all their innate dignity. This degrading treatment was unethical, cruel and has been proven that these events have caused long term mental and physiological effects on the mothers. The distinction between the unwedded mothers and the adoptive mothers were that the adoptive mothers would only have the capabilities to raise the child. The unwedded mothers were so commonly told they were unfit, unsuitable mothers and that to put their babies up to a family who were married and had the capabilities and financial resources to look after their babies. However welfare workers in adoption denied mothers information to enable them to raise their babies on their own. Availability of financial assistance would have been a great help to get unwedded mothers to get on their feet to have the financial capacities to raise their child however they were denied access to these services and only felt they had once choice and were left with the guilt and shame and label as relinquished mothers when they had no choices to begin with. To deny single mothers of financial support that was available to other more “legitimate” mothers raising children alone ie: widows, deserted wives and divorcees by the Commonwealth, were seen to be condoning forced adoption and contributed to the forced adoption policies and practices of State welfare, health, church and charity organizations. (Senate Community Affairs References Committee, 2011).
Swain explains in her article that pregnancy outside marriage became to be seen as a psychological issue rather than a moral failing, and the social workers were to “help” the young mother to understand her own predicament and come to the realisation was as much her own interest as that of her child. (Swain 2011). The quadrants of the approaches to grounding human dignity, Quadrant 1B being critical in this article as it shows dignity that humans always have based on their possession of one or more human capabilities. In which is shows the capabilities of the unwedded mothers being taken from them and not shown any support to help their have their own human needs meet. The negative experiences from the unwedded mothers were made to make them feel that their capacity’s and rights to raise their own child was taken from them and their views of themselves and their self-worth were relinquished and this falls under the 2A quadrant that dignity can be lost through a loss of self-worth. In Swains article she has used direct quotes from mothers that had experienced forced adoptions and a lot said “society did not accept unwed mothers” and “I was told being unmarried, I wasn’t fit to be a mother”(Kenny et al, 2011). The social attitudes and social norms towards unwedded mothers and adoptive mothers were that many birth parents were very young, vulnerable or in personal crisis and that many young, single mothers were made to feel inadequate in society thus leaving them disempowered and shamed leaving them isolated by health and welfare staff.. These policies and practices reflected the values and attitudes of the times and, for unmarried pregnant women, adoption was assumed to be one of very few possible options because of having little to no financial and other support and the stigma associated with illegitimacy and motherhood out of wedlock. (Senate Community Affairs References Committee, 2011). Kelly (2005) identifies that the silencing of girls, the denial of their motherhood status, and the placing of the baby for adoption was their sacrifice for the family and for society.
The shame and guilt, felt by women who found themselves pregnant out of wedlock and were forced or coerced into give up their babies, resulted in their loss of dignity. The national apology was intended to restore this lost dignity which was taken place on March the 21st 2014 with more than 800 people gathered at Parliament House in Canberra to hear Prime Minister Julia Gillard apologise for those policies and practices that took place. Unfortunately the day Julia Gillard apologised became the day that a leadership spill was announced also and after her well-spoken speech, all attention shifted to politics. That moment was heartbreaking for many who hoped to gain greater community understanding from the apology (Keen, 2014).
Tens of thousands of mothers and children across Australia were illegally separated at birth and their records concealed. These women spent their lives feeling the guilt and shame of having to give up their babies. Their children suffered loss, confusion and pain while many would never be reunited with their mothers again. Some women were drugged, restrained and many were just told they had no choices. All of them were deemed unfit by all authority figures such as nurses, doctors, families or society in general. Women feel anger, grief, guilt, resentment towards feeling the abandoned their child. (Keen, 2014). In the article by Denise Cuthbert and Marian Quartly they analyse the long-standing campaign for an apology to the women separated from their children through adoption in an historical and political period. They traced the rise of the single mother as a political voice through the council for the single mother and her child and the emergence of birth mother advocacy groups (Cuthburt et al, 2012). The apology moved to attention in Australia in the last 10 years and the public exhibition of suffering and pain felt by these mothers have come together with collective regret to produce a national project of reconciliation, of atonement for Australia’s past practice in child welfare (Cuthburt et al, 2012). The shame and guilt felt by the mothers would be seen to fit the 2a Quadrant on the approaches to grounding human dignity. 2A views dignity that humans can acquire or lose through a sense of self-worth. Society justified their actions as explain the unwedded pregnant women actions as immoral behaviours that led them to lose their right to be treated with dignity and so this has also fallen under the 2B quadrant that dignity can be acquired or lost through moral or immoral behaviour and is said that humans lose when they behave badly, in which case the unwedded mothers behaved badly by becoming pregnant out of wedlock and was then seen as a social burden. This argument is not so much threw the women’s one’s own sense of self-worth, but on the way in which society has judged them to not have human dignity through their behaviours. In the past, after giving up their babies, a birth mother was left with her grief for her missing child and for the life she would then have, all for the family and society’s approval she needed, or thought she previously had and to regain the previous self-image. Although the mothers may have gained these approvals to be accepted and be shown their own dignity, they would still carry with them a lifetime of guilt and shame and compromise their own self dignity but their own lack of self-worth.
Forced adoptions impacted human dignity in so many aspects, in the 4 quadrant’s in grounding human dignity forced adoptions and the process were jeopardising the 1a,1b,2a and 2b aspects. Every mother has a right to keep her own child, with the practices that took place this took this basic human right away from the birth mother jeopardising the 1a quadrant. Earlier in the essay I discussed society’s views on the capabilities with the unwedded single birth mother compared to the married financially sable adoptive mother and how society took away their dignity calling the birth mothers “unfit” due to their lack of capabilities to raise a child and this jeopardised the 1b quadrant. The 2a quadrant was also an aspect into forced adoptions as discussed previously the self-worth and self-image of the birth mothers were impacted as society saw them as burdens and that they have no rights to be mothers. Society stripped these birth mothers of any self-worth and human dignity as they felt they behaved immorally and that they had forfeited their right to have their child in which this jeopardised the 2b quadrant of dignity.
An estimated 150,000 thousand infants were forcibly or coercively removed from mothers.. The legacy of pain and loss for many of these mothers and their children has remained for decades. (Cuthbert, 2013) Looked at a win win situation by the government that infant adoption was seen as a solution to the double stigmas of infertility and illegitimacy all awhile hoping it would help the caring for children of mothers deemed “unfit” to raise them. All these policies and procedures have left permanent pain from the shame and guilt left from these forced adoptions by the birth mothers and lucky to further social changes including the availability of the contraceptive pill from the early 1970s that helped shift the attitudes to extra-marital sexuality and the introduction of a readily accessible Commonwealth single mothers’ benefit led to a dramatic lower the numbers of babies available on the local adoption market. (Cuthbert, 2013). I hope that the courageous birth mothers who had to experience the pain and suffering from having their child forcefully removed after birth and who fought a drawn out, hard campaign for recognition of the injustices done to them receive some true solace from the Australian apology.

Reference List.

Cuthbert, D. (2013, 3 21). How adoption went wrong in Australia, and why we’re apologising today. Retrieved 05 30, 2014, from The Convosation: http://theconversation.com/how-adoption-went-wrong-in-australia-and-why-were-apologising-today-12887
Cuthbert, Denise, and Marian Quartly. “‘Forced Adoption’ in the Australian Story of National Regret and Apology.” Australian Journal of Politics and History 58, no.1 (2012): 82-96.
Free, B. (2001, 10). Silence, Secrecy, and Shame Lead to Trauma. Retrieved 05 30, 2014, from http://www.nmoi.org/articles/SilenceSecrecyShame.html
Keen, L. (2014, 3 21). Forced adoption: Is an apology enough? Retrieved 05 30, 2014, from ABC Open: https://open.abc.net.au/posts/forced-adoption-apology-40ag7vy
Kelly R 2005, Motherhood silenced. Dublin: The Liffey Press.
Kenny, P., Higgins, D., Solof, C., & Sweid, R. (2012, August 1). Past Adoption Experiences: National Research Study on the Service Response to Past Adoption Practices. Retrieved May 23, 2014, from http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/resreport21/index.html
Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “dignity,” accessed December 8, 2012.
Senate Community Affairs References Committee. (2011, October). Retrieved 05 30, 2014, from The Australian Association of Social Workers AASW: http://www.aasw.asn.au/document/item/2270
Swain, Shurlee. “Adoption, Secrecy and the Spectre of the True Mother in Twentieth Century Australia.” Australian Feminist Studies 26, no.68 (2011) : 193-205.