OT Given not much happening 'footie-wise'.....

...The attached article got me thinking.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62172101

I genuinely don't want to stir up controversy or knee jerk responses but interested to see if anyone else has similar views or come the same conclusion I have.

The clamour from various organisations interested parties for 'Government aapologies' for things that took plaace decades or centuries ago - everything from the situation experienced by women in the article and treatment of children in orphanages, slavery and subjugation during the Empire is a relatively recent phenomenon driven , in the main, by human rights organisations and on some occasions politically motivated.

On the plus side:

Making the current generations aware of what happened and change perceptions and attitudes to try to prevent it happening again (albeit slavery in various forms still exists) can only be a good thing.

If an 'apology' helps to achieve 'closure' for victims then fine.

However, for example in the cases highlighted above, when you stop and think.. what is the value of an apology from a Govt or organisation whose staff were by and large were not even born when these events took place?
IF the apology came from the perpetrators, most of whom are probably deceased, then they might, just might, actually mean something (assuming they were not just coerced into making an apology). On that note I suspect attitudes from many of those GPs, Religion based organistations and charities from that generation were so entrenched I doubt any forthcoming apology would be genuine and heartfelt.

So, in the final analysis, 'apology by proxy' for want of a better way to describe it. Is pretty meaningless by any standards.

If you view it as an acknowledgement of an abhorrent act being commited by an organisation or individual then OK. But calling for formal 'apologies' takes up valuable resources - time and money- and usually means the legal vultures start circling seeing apologies from Governments and/or organisations as an admission of culpability and a green light for civil litigation.

 

First of all it was Government policy to take babies away from single young mothers , not some random decision by midwives , going back to the 1930,s and 40’s girls were incarcerated in mental hospitals for becoming pregnant often after being raped . So it’s totally appropriate for the Government to apologise and recognise the victims suffering
Football wise there’s the small matter of the Womens European Cup !!

 

I don't think it should matter if it's either years ago or different people in charge etc.

Recognising wrong doing no matter how long ago is welcomed.

Yes, it probably doesn't change much, but, I would say views are probably linked, if, for example, you or you know of someone who's been affected.

If you're not affected I can see why someone would possibly think what's the point.

However, if you were affected or know someone that was, an apology and recognition of it would go some way to help grieve or move on in some way.

Never too late to admit mistakes or apologise.

 

Why exactly are they "legal vultures" and why shouldn't the people involved be entitled to compensation?

 

IMO an overly simplistic view. Where do you draw the line? I agree in certain circumstance it could be argued that survivors of such treatment could be financially compensated but that means the current generation ends up footing the bill for past attitudes. Clogging up the courts with complex historical cases only makes things worse.Whole generations , many steeped in religious views, stigmatised and villified unmarried and single mothers. A more enlightened society should not be made to pick up the bill for every wrongdoing made in the past. If we applied that to 16th century slavery goung back to 16th 17th and 18th century , you could trace millions of people in USA and Caribbean back to suvivors of the slave trade. Would you propose compensating all of them. If not. how do you determine who and how? The past should be remembered but financial hit on current and future generations is equally unfair to millions including future generations.

Have you evidence to support your opening sentence? As per my comment to Mansfield_red , Society stigmatised and reviled unmarried and single mothers. However, it was not Govt policy to automatically remove the child from its mother. They were pressurised by midwives doctors and local authorities to relinquish their child for adoption but there are few cases of forced removal against their will. The law was intended to remove children where it was deemed that the child would be at risk or the mother's circumstances were such that they could not safely bring a child up. Of course society and attitudes often made that a self fulfilling prophesy e.g. Victorian times, someone 'in service' would find themselves 'let go without references and any means of support so ended up having the chiuld taken away. The myth still exists in some quarters that Social Service are out to get them or they are only interested in the welfare of the child and don't care about the single parent.

Quote: "It is important to acknowledge, however, that, whatever the legal theory, practice has changed dramatically over the 89 years we have had adoption in England. Non- consensual adoption used to be rare, but the position has changed radically. Initially, the courts took a very narrow view indeed of the final limb of section 2(3) of the 1926 Act: see Re JM Caroll [1931] 1 KB 317 and contrast H v H [1947] KB 463. Much more important, the entire focus of adoption has changed dramatically in recent decades. Until the late 1960s, the typical adoption was of an illegitimate child born to a single mother who, however reluctantly, consented to the adoption of her child. Non-consensual adoption was comparatively rare. A combination of dramatic changes in the 1960s – the ready availability of the contraceptive pill, the legalisation of abortion, the relaxation of the divorce laws and a sea-change in society’s attitudes to illegitimacy – led to a drastic reduction in the number of adoptions of the traditional type. The result of various changes in the system of public childcare, culminating in the implementation in October 1991 of the 1989 Act, has led in recent decades to a correspondingly dramatic increase in the number of non-consensual adoptions. The typical adoption today is of a child who has been made the subject of a care order under the 1989 Act and where parental consent has been dispensed with in accordance with section 52(1)(b) of the 2002 Act.
Adoption is the means by which a child’s legal relationship with his birth parents is eliminated and the child becomes a legal member of a new family. Adoption did not become law in England and Wales until the Adoption Act 1926; some time after the USA, Australia and Canada. Many babies born out of marriage in the Victorian era were ‘farmed out’ or placed with married couples who would pretend the baby was their own. There were increasing concerns about the lack of regulation of this private adoption industry which led to statutory intervention. Under the Local Government Act 1929, local authorities (LA) were given powers to remove children from parents, if the LA decided they could not care for them."

I don't disgree that recognition of victims suffering should happen but placing all the blame on a vindictive and malicious Government of the day's policy is wide of the mark. Far from it... the adoption laws set out to try and remove illegal and harmful Victorian practices within the poorer sections of society when dealing with 'illegitimate' births i.e. children born out of Wedlock! . The article below makes for interesting reading

https://lawexplores.com/adoption-of-children-1900-1973/