While I respect the fact that The Royal Women's Hospital have apologised on behalf of staff both past and present for enforcing forced adoption practices within our State; are we still missing something; something of a greater picture. Yes staff are to blame for the horrendous acts of injustice to mother, father and baby but the hospital - the directors, those who passed down the instructions to carry out these acts are the ones ultimately liable. Surely staff didn't come up with the idea to take these babies on their own accord? Someone greater was responsible for that - who? And where are they today? These people alone should be held accountable.
As an adoptee I find very little comfort from these apologies being made; how can that change the grief, pain and anguish already caused? An apology here is a cop-out, it's not necessarily made or endorsed by those individually responsible, all it is after all is acknowledgment of what happened in the past, a corrective measure to say we don't condone these type of practices anymore - but they did! They want to protect their so called trust to families today, that's all. Whether you are a birth parent who was forced to relinqhuish their baby or an adoptee who was robbed of their parents, families, origins how can an apology fix that - it just can't. You don't suddenly turn around and say - oh well an apology has made all the difference, I forgive them. Our lives are not mended over-night nor will they. The effects of such acts are life long, never forgotten. So to the very hospital which I was born and possibly stolen from, shame on you all, you will have to live with the knowledge of such wrong doings.
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