Then They Came For The Birth Mothers

"There are NO circumstances in which is is right to permanently 

steal a child from a woman who only needs our help."

by Fintan Dunne | April 10 2015 @ 19:00 BST

You may have thought that Irish mothers who were incarcerated in religious-run concentration camps, and whose children were forcibly adopted, would be pleased to see an official Irish government inquiry already commissioned. 

Think again. There's been  media management of this issue in Ireland.

The online newspaper 'The Journal', earlier this year reported that the Irish Government's Mother and Baby inquiry had been "broadly welcomed".

So you probably didn't hear that the 50-strong Irish First Mothers group, which met and lobbied ministers both north and south in Ireland, opposed it!

For contrast read Conall Ó Fátharta's report in the Irish Examiner. The reality is that on the day the government announced the Mother and Baby inquiry, most mothers rejected it!

They did not welcome it!? How come the confusion? Lazy media is one reason.

Mr. Paul Redmond is the 'Coalition of Mother And Baby Home Survivors', to give him his full title. That's a reference to a plethora of groups he has "umbrella-ed" under his purview. Most have few members. Mr. Redmond is delighted with the government's plans. As he has every right to be. Government and major media are delighted with Mr. Redmond. Delighted with anyone backing the Government, perhaps.

The Irish government is to build a lost babies monument of some kind at the behest of Mr. Redmond. That was confirmed explicitly by minister James Reilly at the press launch of the inquiry terms, after Mr. Redmond rose to tell his government benefactor that the inquiry was more than he could have hoped for.

And maybe it is. If you have testicles.

But if you have or had a womb, maybe it's not anywhere near what you hoped for..., or dreamed of.

If you had a womb whose progeny was stolen from you --along with your very life potential-- maybe it's a nightmare second betrayal by a State which betrayed you before.

Not what you hoped for at all.


R I G H T S

Last July I wrote that the U.N. committee on human rights had rejected the general basis of Ireland's inquiries into Magdalene homes, non-consensual symphysiotomy cases and the forthcoming mother and baby homes inquiry.

The Committee said it regretted Ireland's:

 "failure to provide full and effective remedies to victims [...] including appropriate compensation, restitution, rehabilitation and measures of satisfaction."

Here's article 8 of the declaration of Human Rights:

"Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law."

You see, birth mothers are ENTITLED to an effective inquiry AS A HUMAN RIGHT.

I don't know how anyone can stay silent about this new breach of the human rights of these tens of thousands of Irish first mothers. A new human rights violation which heaps injury, on prior injury.

And I don't know how Judge Yvonne Murphy can sit on the government's mother and baby homes inquiry. The U.N. rights body says the government used her work on the symphysiotomy cases (Article 7 breach) in a pretense of addressing the issues (Article 8 breach).

For Judge Murphy to adjudge again for the Government in the case of birth mothers, is to facilitate a new violation of Article 8 of the declaration of human rights. But that's just me. Judge Murphy would doubtless validly say she is merely carrying out a legal job.

Nevertheless, here's how justice Irish-style is planned to play out:

1. Well-paid lawyers and bureaucrats will quietly hear the testimony of selected and often impoverished or still-suffering birth mothers, who will thus provide these inquisitors a secure job for years. That will keep all parties in the style to which they have become accustomed. 

2. At the end of which the inquisitors will tell the mothers what they already know, and the report will be filed away after a five minute Joe Little "package" on the evening news.

3. Some mothers may get some measly charity handout from the State if it feels like it eventually and if they jump through enough bureaucratic hoops and impediments and even further delays. 

4. Forget about restorative justice or admission of wrong by the State. 

5. No lessons learned, no prosecutions, no exhumations, no payouts, no action, no problem!

If you can stay silent about that, then good luck to you. I can't.

And I doubt the still seething mothers will for much longer either.


C L A S S

First they came for the Mothers, and I did not speak out—   

Because I was not a Mother. ... 

First mothers can best make sense of all this by looking on themselves as unrecognized Jews. The deluded Germans gathered Jews in concentration camps and stole their possessions to give them to the well-connected. In Ireland they threw unwed mothers in concentration camps and stole their children to give them to the well-heeled.

The difference being that most Germans realize what they did was loathsome - the Irish elites are still in denial. They figure theirs was merely a minor indiscretion at worst.

And this might make still more sense if also viewed as a class issue - not entirely a religious one.

Babies were stolen using the lie that it was valid to steal the children of working-class girls, because middle-class life is superior - and the girls are immoral and undeserving of even their own child! Of course, some middle-class girls got pregnant too, but that was presumably due to these girls being infected with the allegedly morally sinful sexual values of working-class girls.

In truth, unwed sex transcended class barriers - but class prejudice remains and still rules.

Class still Rules! Mná  na hEireann (Women of Ireland), the well-heeled want your babies.

They covet them. And the danger is: they can afford to want them - even if you can't. If you think I'm exaggerating, explain how a poor family successfully adopts? Case closed. It's the well-heeled. Period.

Today in Australia and the UK, social services are stealing children wholesale. The social value of simply helping parents who may be in need is no longer operative. The big money is in adoption. There are quotas of child stealing to be met.

Seriously. Local authorities have actual quotas to meet - with big money rewards and promotion for stealing babies for the well-heeled.

The well-heeled want your babies. They have learned nothing. Women of Ireland, now they are passing laws to ensure that there is no discrimination in who can steal your babies!

In deep irony, well-heeled gays will be just as entitled as heterosexuals to steal your baby if they catch you down on your luck. That's what we call progress round here. Their only impediment is the current lack of a proper supply of babies for adoption. The word "supply" comes easily there. Supply of what? Supply of other people's children - to steal.

No worries, though. Social services have rich pickings from the human debris of the current recession. We'll meet those gay adoption targets by thick or thin, eh. We're so modern and liberal, eh?




R E A L I T I E S

There are NO circumstances in which is is right to permanently steal a child from a woman who only needs our help as a society.

And I don't care if that upsets well-heeled adopting parents, 95% of whom plain outright stole a child from a fellow citizen with the help of thuggish goons in church and law. And I don't care if that upsets the politicians from all sides who have their own adopted children and are thus extremely biased actors.

Mná na hEireann (Women of Ireland), you are on your own on this. But we shall not let these goons loose on another generation of Irish girls. It's time to confront the well-heeled; the politicians and lawyers who conspired to steal children epidemically in the past.

Time to confront the current breed of bureaucrats who have created a sham inquiry - leaving victims to struggle on in life and --some hope-- die before they get either justice or recompense.

You deserve the truth; the WHOLE truth . The truth about what happened to Ireland's female "Jews." On such a vital and serious issue, anything less is a vile social and moral evil.

Don't ask. Asking is over. Demand.

Or get fobbed off. Out of sight and mind.

Again, eh.


Fintan Dunne is the press and PR officer for Irish First Mothers. These are his personal opinions. Mr. Dunne acts for the group but he is not privy to confidential matters discussed in the private birth mothers facebook group.

Website: http://IrishFirstMothers.com/