UK’s Starmer apologises for the state’s role in decades of forced adoptions 

United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has issued a formal apology over the forced adoption of babies born to unmarried British mothers in the decades after World War II, describing the scheme as a “stain on our history”.

Between 1949 and 1976, the British government and Christian churches oversaw a system that coerced and shamed mothers – many of whom were teenagers – into giving up their babies. An estimated 185,000 children were forcibly adopted.

Addressing parliament on Thursday, Starmer said the government was “deeply and profoundly sorry” to “every single person impacted”.

“The state did not do enough to protect mothers, children and families from harm, and for this systemic failure I am truly sorry,” he said.

Starmer’s speech came weeks after the Church of England apologised for its role in forced adoptions, particularly running “mother and baby homes” where pregnant women were sent – often against their will – to be separated from their children.

A parliamentary committee recommended an official government apology four years ago after an investigation found myriad abuses against mothers.

Australia apologised for its own history of forced adoptions in 2013, followed by Ireland in 2021.

In the UK, Starmer acknowledged the practice was systemically embedded “across local authorities, across voluntary and faith-based institutions and in health and social care services”.

He said the government would spend £4 million ($5.3m) to help people access their adoption records, fund secondary services that work to reconnect relatives and seek research documenting long-term effects on victims.

The 2022 parliamentary committee documented the “inhumane” and “cruel” treatment of mothers-to-be.

Practices included the deliberate withholding of painkillers during labour and after childbirth to “punish” the women, as well as ripping babies away from their sobbing mothers.

“Have you learnt your lesson now?” one woman said a doctor told her while she was in labour.

Another survivor recalled a doctor saying she “should be sterilised, as I must be a nymphomaniac”.

Although abortion was legalised in England, Scotland and Wales in 1967, women faced barriers in access, including doctors who refused to provide the service.

In the Church of England’s statement last month, Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally apologised for the “pain, shame and indignity” placed upon mothers and children.

“The shame you were made to feel was wrong … Rather, we are deeply ashamed that this happened to people in the care of Christian communities,” she said.

Starmer echoed those remarks on Thursday.

“The shame is on the state and all those that were responsible for this,” he said.