British Prime Minister Apologizes for Forced Adoptions of 185,000 Babies

Prime Minister Keir Starmer formally apologized Thursday for the British state's role in separating tens of thousands of unmarried mothers from their babies, a practice that lasted for decades until the 1970s. " An estimated 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976.

the policy Campaigners have fought for years for acknowledgment that women were pressured, deceived and threatened into giving up their babies. Starmer met Thursday with a group of campaigners, who watched from the public gallery of the House of Commons as he delivered the apology.

" "Children grew up believing they were unwanted" and mothers were told "their babies would be better off without them," he said.

" But Starmer said forced adoptions were the result of "practices embedded within systems" across local government, religious institutions and the health and social care systems. "The state bears responsibility for the systems it funded and legitimized which enabled these practices to occur," he said.

The apology from Starmer's Labour Party government comes two weeks after the Church of England said sorry for its role in forced adoptions. " Other countries have also apologized for forced adoptions. The three decades after World War II have been labeled the "Baby Scoop Era" in the U.S., where more than 1.5 million infants were surrendered for adoption between 1945 and 1973.

An untold number of their mothers were sent away to maternity homes before giving birth. In 2013, Australia's then-Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, delivered a landmark national apology for the country's history of forced adoptions and the "lifelong legacy of pain and suffering" it had caused.

Ireland has been reckoning with the legacy of mother-and-baby homes run by the Catholic Church, in which tens of thousands of women were housed in often degrading conditions. An inquiry found in 2021 that 9,000 children had died in 18 mother-and-baby homes during the 20th century.