The Mother and Baby Homes Commission Report demonstrates the state’s continuing failure to communicate with survivors and recognise their experience. To illustrate this point, I want to discuss one of the Report’s most important conclusions; that there was “very little evidence” of “forced adoption” in Ireland in the period 1922-1998. This conclusion is based on an analysis that divorces law from its social and political context, assuming that if conduct was ‘lawful’ then it cannot have been abusive.
“Forced adoption” was one possible, partial, name for the ways in which some single mothers and their children experienced adoption law. As part of the process of holding the state accountable for past abuse, survivors wanted and expected the Commission to evaluate how the law was applied to them. Instead, however, the Report focuses on explaining the old adoption laws and on assessing whether adoptions were generally legal or illegal at various points in Irish history.
The Report emphasises that mothers in Ireland “had time after the initial placement for adoption” to understand the consequences of their decision, assess it, and perhaps change their minds. It is true that the Adoption Act 1952 provided that the baby must be at least 6 months’ old before an adoption could be finalised. Even if a woman decided to place the baby for adoption while still days or weeks old, in theory she had a months-long “cooling off” period in which to change her mind. If she did not object during that period, the law assumed that her decision was not forced.
The Commission contrasts Irish law with the law in Australia which, in the Commission’s opinion did enable forced adoption. In Australia, a legal adoption could take place within days of birth. This analysis is weak. Ireland’s mandatory six-month waiting period only applied between 1952 and 1974. Before 1952, Ireland had no adoption legislation and therefore no statutory cooling-off period. From 1974, the mandatory waiting period was reduced to six weeks. In any event, we know that prescribing this period in law did not ensure that women had meaningful opportunities for free choice. If a woman spent that period in a “Home”, for example, the Commission accepts that she was often subject to “emotional abuse”. This inevitably undermined her freedom of choice.
Ronan Mullen calls for national voluntary collection for mother and baby home survivors