There was a moving and unusual display of unity in the Commons on Thursday when the Prime Minister apologised on behalf of the nation to the mothers – some of whom were in the public gallery – who had been forced to give up their children for adoption on account of not being married. Reform MP, Sarah Pochin, spoke movingly about how her own mother was obliged to put her half brother up for adoption. Unity and sympathy all round.
Our solution to the problem of unwelcome pregnancies is abortion
In fact, none of this should come as a surprise. In the Family Way, Jane Robinson’s account of the children sent to the Coram hospitals last century included stories of those women who were obliged to give up illegitimate offspring for adoption; the mother and baby homes weren’t just an Irish thing.
I know a bit about it. My father was born out of marriage to a young Protestant girl in County Wexford; his aunt put him up for adoption when he was a day old, though the expression doesn’t quite do justice to the informal fashion in which he was handed over in short order to a complete stranger. As it happened, it turned out brilliantly.
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