The Archdiocese of Vancouver has released an apology on Mother’s Day weekend for its role in what has been called Canada’s “post-war adoption mandate” that led to the coerced separation of unmarried mothers from their children.

The apology, released Friday, said in 1933 the Archdiocese of Vancouver founded a home for unmarried mothers where many women were pressured to give up their babies. 

The Our Lady of Mercy Home for unmarried mothers, under the direction of the Superintendent of Child Welfare of the Province of British Columbia, was located at 54th Avenue and Oak Street in Vancouver and offered unwed pregnant mothers “a place to stay, arrangements for medical care, counselling, financial planning, and temporary foster care for those who needed time to plan their future and make decisions about the care of their child, including adoption.”

The archdiocese’s apology said, “We now know that many of these mothers faced pressures that adoption was the only choice.”

The archdiocese’s role “in any pressured and coerced adoptions created a legacy of pain and suffering,” said the statement. “We contributed to a culture of shame, guilt and secrecy, which often led to pain and isolation.”

“How do I tell my daughter that her stepbrother is actually her father?” No, this is not a preview of the season finale of Thuis. It's a question an American woman really asks herself. She asked the 'therapist' of The Atlantic magazine for advice.

Every family has its secrets, but that of this anonymous woman from the United States is very special. In the column 'Dear therapist' she wonders how to tell her now 30-year-old daughter that the man she thinks is her father is actually her grandfather, and that the man she thinks is her stepbrother is, in reality, her real father. Can you still follow?

Actually it is less complex than it seems. When the woman met her husband more than thirty years ago, it quickly became clear that they wanted a child together. The only problem was that the man, who already had two children from a previous relationship, had already had a vasectomy performed. Too long ago to be reversible. And so the couple had to look for a sperm donor.

“We didn't want to use a sperm bank, so we asked my husband's son to be the donor,” the woman writes in her reader's letter. “It seemed like the best solution to us: our child would have my husband's genes and we knew my stepson's health, personality and intelligence. He agreed to help.”

“Our daughter is now 30. My husband and I are anxious, confused and worried about telling her,” she adds. “This is especially difficult for my husband, because he wants our daughter to know that he will always be her father.”

Enfants roumains évaporés en France

3/10/2007

Bucarest dénonce la disparition de mineurs roumains hospitalisés en France.

Les autorités de Bucarest ont indiqué vendredi 27 février avoir dénoncé la disparition d’enfants roumains pris en charge par des associations pour être hospitalisés en France, et dont les parents seraient sans nouvelles depuis des années.

La secrétaire d’Etat, chargée de la protection de l’enfance, Gabriela Coman a en effet déclaré devant une commission parlementaire que des enfants de Roumanie, qui ont été envoyés en France pour des traitements médicaux en 1997 et 1998 ne sont plus jamais revenus dans leur pays.

The case of children who left for treatment and did not return to the country

child

Several children left Romania for treatment abroad

The National Authority for Child Protection will check under what conditions they left Romania, for several years, based on medical certificates recommending treatment abroad. The cases were reported by the newspaper "Gândul".

It would be about children who left the country for treatment through humanitarian organizations, one of them being SERA (Solidarite Enfants Roumains Abandonnes).

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La vie avec un « bébé » de 12 ans…

22 AVRIL 2012 / 3 COMMENTAIRES

Ce texte fait suite à Un oui doublement initié par nos enfants qu’il est préférable de lire avant… Pour un sommaire de tous les articles de ce blogue, on consultera Pour une lecture suivie de ce blogue.

Christian et son sourire ravageur

Le jour de son arrivée parmi nous, il ne nous a fallu que quelques minutes pour prendre conscience de l’ampleur des soins que le handicap physique de Cristi, que nous avions convenu d’appeler Christian, allaient exiger. Opéré à sept ans pour des séquelles de poliomyélite, Christian portait depuis une sorte de structure métallique au bas du corps, attaché à un corset rigide servant à garder sa colonne droite. Cet appareil devait peser au moins 10 kg. C’est beaucoup pour un enfant. Et difficile à décrire. C’était franchement émouvant de le voir déambuler avec cet attirail. Avec ses deux cannes canadiennes, il avait appris à marcher en balançant les deux pieds ensemble vers l’avant et en ramenant ensuite ses cannes. Il était très habile. C’était quelque chose à voir lorsque venait le temps de monter les escaliers. Après son premier souper, le soir de son arrivée, il fallait qu’il « grimpe » à l’étage, là où se trouvait sa chambre. Je le suivis et je constatai l’effort qu’il devait accomplir pour monter les marches une à une. Il devait « débarrer » le genou avec une main pour qu’il plie, le barrer de nouveau après avoir déposé le pied sur la marche suivante pour qu’il puisse se porter dessus, débarrer l’autre genou, etc. Chaque marche ainsi montée me donnait l’impression d’une conquête. J’avais conclu durant cette montée qu’il lui faudrait une chambre au rez-de-chaussée, ce que j’allais m’empresser de proposer à notre propriétaire dès le lendemain.

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Shirley Sagin was among those who helped war orphans find loving homes in the U.S. after the Saigon Airlift at the end of the Vietnam War.

There is likely no one in the Greater Philadelphia area who is responsible for finding more loving families for orphaned children, including many who had been considered unadoptable, than Shirley Milner Sagin, 97, who died of Alzheimer's disease June 12 at the Joseph Scott Health Center of Rydal Park in Jenkintown.

Sagin, a revered social worker and adoption specialist who served as the “stork” for hundreds of families throughout the Delaware Valley, raised her own family for two decades in Springfield Township and lived with her husband, Jerome, for 10 years in Wyncote, and then for many years at the Hill House in Chestnut Hill. After that, they lived at the Wesley Enhanced Living at Stapeley facility in Germantown.

Through a long tenure at Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS) of Greater Philadelphia, where she was the director of adoption services for more than two decades, Sagin helped place babies with loving families throughout the region. When Jewish babies available for adoption became scarce, she worked to help other agencies find homes for hard-to-place children.

A member of the an LGBT family organisation writes the report on rainbow families for the EU. Advisors of surrogacy experts produce new LGBT legislation. An EU employee warns about the rainbow lobby in the European Union.

LGBT proponents write ánd check the EU legislation on rainbow issues. News website El Debate claims that ‘independent’ advisors are actually part of the LGBT lobby.

Minor

One example of this is Alina Tryfonidou, El Debate points out. Tryfonidou authored the study746632) on cross-border recognition of parenthood in the EU. The report was to critically analyse the plan of the EU to make member states recognise the parenthood of people from other member states. For example, a Dutch gay couple with a child should also be recognised as the parents of this minor when they move to a country where same-sex marriage is forbidden.

However, Alina Tryfonidou helped to draft the Regulation by the European Commission, which she had to review in her report. According to El Debate, she was involved to such an extent that “she knew the content of the text before its official publication.”