Protecting children in adoption

This conference paper is of significance, referenced in a submission to a current world first Inquiry into eugenic adoption. It details an experiment imported into Australia from the US in 1953 by Fullbright Scholar Margaret Thornhill. Statistical data shows an exponential trend in hospital-arranged adoptions from 1953 (Royal Women's Hospital submission to the Senate inquiry into forced adoption; p. 4, <https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/comittees/viewdocument.aspx?id=edd3e0dd-29b7-4d86-9439-017ca85b68b4>). Margaret Thornhill who attended the conference "Protecting children in adoption" in 1955, after returning from Australia in 1954, was commissioned by US government officials to find a solution to a black market in babies in the US. Consulted by Australian Government officials, Thornhill made recommendations which were able to be implemented in major maternity hospitals across Australia in virtue that social services and schemes were Commonwealth funded in Australia from 1946. From 1946, Commonwealth officials commissioned the Australian Association of Social Workers to interpret social policy to the public. Consequently, hospital practices were adopted from the US (which persist in the US today), which resulted in the forced adoption of thousands of Australian infants of unmarried mothers. The peak of the removals was 1972, though the illegal hospital practices continued well into the 1980s. All of the taken babies were subjected to an eugenic medical examination, and many consequently deemed 'unadoptable' on health grounds were institutionalized. These practices and their consequents, constitute one of the darkest periods of human rights violations in Australian history. http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/comm_contrib_former_forced_adoption/index.htm