More victim narrative creation in the liberal press
This is an ongoing story. It comes up now and again in the Guardian. The story is allegedly about “forced adoptions” which took place in the UK between the 1940s and 1980s.
The author of this particular article is someone called Chris Osuh, who is described as a “Community Affairs” correspondent. Whether Mr Osuh is consciously making up the story or has been co-opted by lobby groups and has failed to do the necessary research to reach (and report) a balanced account, I don’t know. It is one of the two.
The basis of the story is that during this period, I think especially in the sixties, there were high rates of unmarried mothers giving up their babies for adoption. This was because social attitudes, (and perhaps also the welfare state), did not make it easy to be a single mother. The Abortion Act of 1967 also seems to have made abortion much easier and this might partly explain why, prior to that, giving an unplanned baby up for adoption was such a widespread practice; there was no viable alternative. [1] The narrative told here by Chris Osuh is the “outraged victim narrative”. In this version this was a crime and a scandal, with mothers being “forced” to give up their babies. This is not true. It may be the case that in some cases there was social pressure on young single mothers to give their child. Mothers who sought help from Church organisations might well have experienced moral disapproval and pressure to give the baby up for adoption to a “good” family. However; a) even in these cases it is simply dishonest to speak of “forced adoptions” (see further below); pressure is not “forced” and b) in many cases the adoption was the express wish of the mother. In the Parliamentary report linked at [1] – which seems itself to be very much following the victim narrative – we can note that the evidence cited is that of 500,000 adoptions between 1945 and 1976 a journalist, (not a statistical source) stated “hundreds of thousands” were based on pressure. I don’t know where the journalist, (who is, surprisingly relied on a source by a Parliamentary Committee) got his figure from. Even if we take it as true – that still allows for hundreds of thousands of happy mothers!
This issue touches a spot for this author. He was adopted via The Church Adoption Society, in 1966. I have seen letters my natural mother wrote at the time. There is not a hint of pressure. On the contrary she seems pleased to have seen the back of me so she could move on with her life, while being pleased that the new parents were decent people. My adopted parents, seem to have been happy, (until my ragged teenage years, perhaps). In at least this case then Chris Osuh’s story is false.
But, my argument does not rely on personal anecdote. For a long time there have existed legal and easy to access mechanisms for people who were adopted, to locate their natural mothers, if the natural mothers so wished, (and even with good detective skills, if they didn’t). People in this situation have been able to use a national locator register run by a charity and/or contact the adoption society who arranged the adoption. If the children were unhappy they have been able, as adults, to reach out to their birth mothers. If they didn’t – that is their choice. There may be mothers who regret their youthful choice; and some are given airtime in the Guardian. But I am not sure that there are that many or as many unhappy adoptees. It sounds hard but; if you give up your baby you can hardly complain if that child doesn’t want to look you up. Again; this was not Nazi Germany, and social pressure is not “forced”. And, here we see how the victim narrative, an absolutely central component of modern liberal-cult ideology, is controlling the story. If we tell this story without the victim narrative lens what do we have? A story about cultural attitudes, which now seem out of date, leading to unmarried mothers giving up unplanned babies; in some cases very happily and in others, an act which they felt they did under social pressure, and later came to regret. It may well be a sad story for many, but there are no victims in this story. The victim narrative is super-imposed on the story. In fact, the story is being exploited to promote the victim narrative.
The Victim Narrative
The victim narrative is a key part of how power and liberalism operate in contemporary society. We see it all the time. It needs much more careful analysis than there is scope for in this single article, but in general terms, it seems power pushes the victim narrative because it is linked to seeing people as docile. Individuals are more manageable when they are seen as not having agency. The victim narrative removes personal agency from people. The explosion in “diagnoses” of special needs and related explosion in payment of various support benefits [2] is also based on the spread of the victim narrative. As we all become victims; so power increases. Power is not just power; it translates to more “medication”, which translates to more money and power to the large institutions which provide the “medication” and their agents, more “support workers” – in all their myriad forms, more mechanisms of control. The end game is a totally docile society where everyone is a victim of something or other and everyone needs “support” (the euphemism for disciplinary control). Anything connected with authority; patriarchy, the Church, morality, is pulled down. Power in this case reaches its zenith.
“Forced adoptions” is a cynical lie
As we mention above; in some cases of adoptions of babies born to unmarried mothers in the time period in question, there might have be an element of pressure. In other cases, not. Even in those cases where there was “pressure” no one, not one person, was forced, (other than in cases of explicit legal intervention), to give up their baby. However; there are such things as “forced adoptions” in the UK. These happen today. And this is the scandal. But these, actual forced adoptions, likely effect working-class families. possibly in some cases those with unattractive social backgrounds, and the liberal Guardian is not likely to give these the same prominence as the mothers who were, allegedly, abused in Church run mother and baby homes and by Church adoption societies. These people are being wronged right now by the state. But for modern liberals – the Church is an enemy, and the state is an ally – or at least co-optable. So the liberals will be more inclined to take on the story of the victims of the Church than the victims of the state. (On a pragmatic level the people organising modern day actual “forced adoptions” are middle-class liberal social workers who probably form a key part of the Guardian’s readership). The forced adoptions I am talking about are when the state, through the courts, orders a baby or child to be removed from its natural parents and then forcibly handed over lock stock and legal barrel to another couple/single person/gay family against the express wishes of the natural parent or parents. [3] To be fair it is possible to find this story covered in the Guardian, historically, though, I think it is fair to say, with less enthusiasm, than this story about unmarried mothers wronged by the Church.
A connection with abortion?
Another key tenet of modern liberalism is “abortion rights”. This is a natural extension of hedonism, materialism and the victim narrative! Hedonism – because one can have one’s pleasure on the spot without any restraint, materialism because extinguishing life is godless, and the victim narrative because to make it legal the woman wanting an abortion has to present as a potential victim of mental health issues.
It seems, based on a quick look at some available figures, that adoptions of illegitimate babies in England and Wales fell sharply after the 1967 Abortion Act was brought in [4] – though some of the drop must have also been due to the increased accessibility of contraception. [5]
Is the denunciation of adoption as a solution to the problem of unplanned pregnancies a covert push for the materialist solution of abortion?
Conclusion
The key point here is how a social story – itself completely valid; societal attitudes were different and some mothers no doubt did feel pressure to give up unplanned babies – is completely distorted, because it is told through the lens of the victim narrative; one of the central dynamics of the convergence between power and modern liberalism, a drive towards the ever-increasing diminution of the individual and encouragement of docility as a social virtue. The author of the Guardian piece even talks about children being “rehomed”. In his mind, people are already animals. (This is called “bestialism” by students of the modern episteme).
Notes
- See Introduction point 4) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt5803/jtselect/jtrights/270/report.html
- “There was a 787%, exponential increase in recorded incidence of autism diagnoses between 1998 and 2018” https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.13505 // “The findings showed that, in absolute terms, the increase was highest in children: amongst boys aged 10-16 years, 1.4% had an ADHD diagnosis and 0.6% had been prescribed ADHD medication in 2000, rising to 3.5% and 2.4% respectively in 2018”. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/jul/significant-rise-adhd-diagnoses-uk // https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5df10ab8e5274a71e5049279/pip-statistics-to-october-2019.pdf – check the graph – an ever upwards direction. 4 x since 2015 so definitely not explained by population growth.
- https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmeduc/writev/1514/1514.pdf
- https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Adoption-of-illegitimate-children-England-Wales-1959-1984_tbl1_228686605
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2502225/