Rejecting the legacy of shame - Part 2

The 1975 debate in parliament about adoptees' right to their birth records

In 1975 a continuous round of media interviews by Angela Hamblin and other members of Jigsaw (the organisation she founded to bring together natural mothers and adoptees) raised public awareness of the negative consequences of secrecy around adoption, and this heightened awareness was reflected in parliament. The clause giving adult adoptees access to their birth records became the most contested part of the Children Bill that MPs debated in 1975.

In the Commons debates, Jill Knight presented a number of scenarios to support her case for preserving the anonymity of natural mothers. On June 20, she suggested that allowing adoptees the right to access their birth records might risk exposing natural mothers to blackmail - “Supposing, for instance, the child had not turned out well and had grown up a tear away or even a young criminal, blackmail could easily be involved.”

By July, the supposed risk had shifted to the mother’s sleep patterns, and to the survival of her marriage:

“It is not fair that, because a young girl had an illegitimate child at some time, she may now, all these years later, have the thought worrying her, even keeping her awake at night if we put through this Bill as it stands. One day sooner or later the child she (gave up for adoption) as a baby may turn up on the doorstep. What is she to do? Is she now to warn her husband of this or is she to leave the possibility in abeyance, and simply hope it may never happen? …..There is often very great jealousy when an emotional shock of this kind happens. I can envisage cases where it would almost destroy a marriage.”

(Jill Knight MP, Hansard, 17 July 1975).

In October, Jill Knight provided an anecdote about a constituent (a time-honoured way MPs can strengthen a dubious argument) to insist that the threat to a woman’s marriage was real:

“My concern springs mainly from my experience of a constituency case where an excellent marriage was totally ruined. The wife at the age of 17 had had an illegitimate child and the child had gone (sic) for adoption. The woman subsequently married and had a very happy marriage with three children who were brought up lovingly in a very happy home. When her illegitimate child was 21 he discovered his mother’s whereabouts and went to see her. That visit totally destroyed the marriage. The husband, who had not been informed of the wife’s first child, found his trust in her totally ruined….he did not know what else she might be keeping from him.”

(Jill Knight, Hansard, 28 October 1975)

Jill Knight went on to force team continued severance of the mother-child bond with women’s rights - “We have permitted women to close the door on any past indiscretions. Goodness knows, the men do it very successfully indeed. Until now, it has been accepted that this is a woman’s right.”

The main supporter in parliament of the access to birth records clause was Labour MP Phillip Whitehead, himself an adoptee and a Jigsaw member. Angela had frequent discussions with Phillip over the Summer of 1975, to co-ordinate the campaign inside and outside parliament, and to demonstrate the common interests of adoptees and natural mothers.

Replying in June to Jill Knight’s objections, Phillip Whitehead drew on his own experience. “I met my own natural mother when I was 30 and I know it is a traumatic experience for both parties,”. he said. “ I would not necessarily say that everyone should do it. I would say there should be counselling at the time that the adoption society or the court makes the records available.” He went on to remind Jill Knight that “many natural mothers who have in the different circumstances of many years ago given up their children, feel as deprived by the blank in their lives as perhaps do the adopted children whom they have lost.”

Phillip Whitehead was able to use the experience of Jigsaw members, and the existence of Jigsaw’s contact register, to reinforce the point:

“An organisation called Jigsaw has been set up by Angela Hamblin and others. It is an organisation of natural mothers who wish to see a register of adoptions open to them. Whether provision for that can be made in the Bill, I do not know. But it casts a light on the approach of the natural mother which is rather different from that suggested by the hon. Lady.”

(Philip Whitehead MP, Hansard, 20 June 1975).

Phillip Whitehead drew on the testimonies of Jigsaw members, and the safeguards provided by its contact register, again in the Commons debates on 17 July and 28 October. He reminded his fellow MPs on 28 October that ”this is the Children Bill. It is not the Protection from the Return of Stigma Bill, or the Concealment of One’s Past Bill.”

The campaigns, both inside and outside parliament, were successful. Parliament voted on 28 October to retain the access to birth records clause, and the clause was incorporated in the Children Act 1975 that passed the following month.

Long lost family

A favourite TV programme of Angela’s in the 2010s was ITV’s Long Lost Family. The programme’s formula remained pretty much the same from episode to episode. Someone who was no longer in contact with a relative would express grief about their loss. The programme team, working with what little information they had, would set about tracing the long lost relative, and, when they were successful, then set up a reunion.

Many of the programmes involved adoption - adoptees wanting to make contact with their first mother, or mothers wanting to make contact with the child they had had to give up. Angela disliked the way the programme would skate over the abuse that had so often brought about the pregnancy, and how it would would downplay the extent to which adoption was so often forced upon the mother rather than chosen by her. And she felt that by stopping at the happy reunion, it ignored the difficulties in rebuilding a subsequent relationship after having to spend so long apart. But she was always moved by the pain of the separation, and by the relief of the reunion. Inevitably tears would flow -  not just in front of the TV camera, but on our side of the TV screen as well.

When the subject was an adoptee, the tracing process invariably started from whatever information was on their birth certificate. After watching one programme, Angela wondered whether they would have had that information if she hadn’t spoken out as a natural mother in 1975 to campaign for a change in the law.. I suggested that she could write up that story for publication. She would have none of it, and nothing more was said. Until earlier this year, when, no longer able to write, she reminded me of my suggestion, and said “perhaps you could do it, when I have gone.”

Part 3 will assess the legacy of Jigsaw, the organisation Angela founded, and her critique of the double standard that shamed single mothers and supplied adopters with children.