MPs urge Theresa May to apologise for ‘pain’ of forced adoption policy

Debate highlighted former practice of forcing unmarried UK mothers to give away babies

MPs have urged the prime minister, Theresa May, to apologise on behalf of the nation to women who were forced to hand over babies for adoption in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s because of social disapproval of unmarried mothers.

An estimated half a million babies were adopted in the years preceding legal reforms in the mid-1970s. Many women have since come forward to say they were coerced into handing over their babies by “moral welfare officers”, the forerunners of social workers, and church-run mother-and-baby homes, the Commons heard.

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ufGplk