LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Keir Starmer formally apologized Thursday for the British state’s role in separating tens of thousands of unmarried mothers from their babies, a practice that lasted for decades until the 1970s.
He said in Parliament that “we are deeply and profoundly sorry” for what he called a “stain on our history.”
An estimated 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976. Campaigners have fought for years for acknowledgment that women were pressured, deceived and threatened into giving up their babies.
Starmer met Thursday with a group of campaigners, who watched from the public gallery of the House of Commons as he delivered the apology.
He said that women were “coerced, bullied or misled into feeling that they had no choice but to have their children taken away from them.”
“Children grew up believing they were unwanted” and mothers were told “their babies would be better off without them,” he said.
“To every one of those affected we say a deep and heartfelt sorry,” said Starmer, who is his final weeks as Britain’s leader.
Alongside the apology, he announced support for affected mothers and children, including better access to adoption records and mental health support.
Apology follows others from Scotland, Wales and Church of England
Britain is one of several countries reckoning with the legacy of social norms, religious practices and government policies that heaped shame on unwed mothers, hid them away in institutions while pregnant and took their children to be adopted by married couples.
Ann Keen, a former U.K. health minister whose baby was taken for adoption in 1966 when she was 17, said the apology was part of “being released from my shame.”
“We need this apology, because we have always been accused of giving up our babies, and we didn’t give them up,” she told the BBC. “We’ve now got the opportunity to really put this wrong right.”
In 2022, Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights said the British state should apologize for “the pain and suffering caused by public institutions and state employees that railroaded mothers into unwanted adoptions.”
The semiautonomous governments in Scotland and Wales issued apologies the following year, but the Conservative U.K. government at the time declined to follow suit, saying that “the state did not actively support these practices.”
But Starmer said forced adoptions were the result of “practices embedded within systems” across local government, religious institutions and the health and social care systems.
“The state bears responsibility for the systems it funded and legitimized which enabled these practices to occur,” he said.
The apology from Starmer’s Labour Party government comes two weeks after the Church of England said sorry for its role in forced adoptions.
Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally said that “we are profoundly sorry for the pain, trauma and stigma experienced — and still carried — by many people because of historical adoption practices in homes affiliated to the Church of England.”
Other countries have also apologized for forced adoptions
In 2013, Australia’s then-Prime minister, Julia Gillard, delivered a landmark national apology for the country’s history of forced adoptions and the “lifelong legacy of pain and suffering” it had caused.
Ireland has been reckoning with the legacy of mother-and-baby homes run by the Catholic Church, in which tens of thousands of women were housed in often degrading conditions. An inquiry found in 2021 that 9,000 children had died in 18 mother-and-baby homes during the 20th century.
Prime Minister Micheál Martin apologized for the “profound and generational wrong” visited upon mothers and their babies who ended up in the institutions.
UK formally apologizes for state’s role in forcing unwed mothers to give up babies for adoption 2026 IUSTITIA.BG – Investigations 2009-2025 2026-07-02 11:54:53
Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law
