Zappone Adoption Bill Cynically Pits Mothers Against Children
I write as the founder of First Mothers, Ireland's largest group of women who were coerced into having their children taken from them for adoption. We view with horror Minister, Katherine Zappone's just-proposed Adoption Bill - which intends to invite natural mothers to legally threaten their lost child against ever even attempting to contact them. It's a blatant attempt to try pit mothers against their own stolen children. Classic divide and conquer from cynical bureaucrats aiming to cover their own tracks of past malfeasance. Furthermore the Minister has ignored the many experts who urged changes to the Bill at the committee stage. In playing politics with a sensitive issue, the Government is trying to stampede mothers into defensively registering a preference of " no contact ". As a consequence, the State's prompting may cut mothers off from engaging with a desperately needed healing process. Many of these women suffer life-long, unresolved