What does BSE stand for?

Mei-Ling

In terms of the "darker" side of adoption - Baby Scoop Era.

NOT a topic to be taken lightly...

Not Adopted

Baby Scoop Era, also known as Era of Mass Surrender.

This era occurred up to roughly the late 1970s when most single mothers were forced to give their babies up for adoption. The mothers were often sent away to live with an out of town relative while pregnant, or sent to maternity homes which were largely prisons. These women were told to "not come home with that baby" and were given no legal rights in the adoption process.

Some of these women were even falsely told their baby had died during childbirth. Others were systematically physically and emotionally abused by their parents, social workers, hospital staff, and churches during their pregnancies.

This era is a shameful part of our history and reparations need to be made to the women who lost their children for the supposed crime of being pregnant while unmarried.

myst1998

Baby Sccop Era - an era where babies all around the world, mainly western world (Ireland, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US and more I'm sure) were taken for adoption... many were drugged and whilst under the influence of these strong drugs (think horse tranquilisers) were made to sign 'hospital release forms' which were in fact adoption consent forms. In many cases, paperwork was forged and not even legal.

So basically an era where babies were actually stolen from the delivery table and hidden from their mothers and placed with families for adoption. Many women I know had pillows placed over their chests so they coudn't see their child being born, some were chained to their hospital beds and left to labour alone usually until the head came out as 'punishment' for their actions (didn't matter if you had been raped, you were still punished for being pregnant). A time where adoption went from being about the child to being about the childless and that is the way it still is.

While it doesn't happen quite like this these days, there are still many young women being coerced to part with their babies or in some cases, taken all for the sake of adoption.

HTH

Felicita1

There is a Wikipedia article about the Baby Scoop Era at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_scoop_era

Zoe

breast self examination

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