Forced adoption drug scandal haunts generations

A group of Australian women have spoken out about a drug and adoption scandal from the 1950s that still haunts them today.

A group of Australian women who became mothers out of wedlock in the 1950s to 70s have told 60 Minutes of having suffered long-term health problems after being given a drug to dry up their breast milk.

More than 150,000 Australian women were coerced into giving up their newborn babies during that period due to being unmarried at the time.

After the delivery of their babies, the teenage mums were left alone, out of it on sedatives and given Stilboestrol, to stop them producing breast milk.

The drug has since been linked to serious diseases including cancer.

One of the mothers who took Stilboestrol, Lily Arthur, told 60 Minutes she harboured 58 years of pain caused by giving up her child.

Ms Arthur said she had a hysterectomy at 43, while other women interviewed by 60 Minutes said they had endured long-term health problems.

She said it was “far easier just to let us all die” than look into the consequences of what was done.

Ms Arthur said like many of the mothers she wanted to keep her child, but he was taken away.

“They hadn’t even asked me if I was adopting him or anything,” she said.

“So, you know, that decision was totally taken out of my hands right from the word go.”

Lily Arthur. Picture: Nine/60 Minutes.

She was 16 and six weeks pregnant when she was arrested and placed in the South Brisbane watch house.

Ms Arthur was later declared a ward of the state and detained in an unmarried mother’s home.

Wendy Pankhurst told the program that she was 17 when she was forced to give up her eldest child and later given Stilboestrol.

She said at the time she was not worried about the medication.

“If a doctor said you need to take this medication, you took it,” she said.

In the years since, Ms Pankhurst said she had been diagnosed with lung issues.

Wendy Pankhurst . Picture: Nine/60 Minutes.

At the time Stilboestrol, also known as DES was marketed as the “miracle drug of modern medicine”.

The medication was also used to stop miscarriage, treat prostate cancer and mitigate menopause symptoms.

The second child of Wendy Pankhurst, Cathryn Buckerfield, said after her mother took the pills, she has been plagued with bad health.

“I suffer from fibromyalgia. I developed puberty very, very late,” she told 60 Minutes.

“I’ve also got chronic migraines. It took six years and then a round of IVF to fall pregnant

“I have stage four endometriosis, which just meant I had a hysterectomy.

“And asthma, I really struggle to breathe.”

By 2007, it was only used in the treatment of prostate cancer and breast cancer and today it is rarely prescribed medication.

Originally published as Forced adoption drug scandal haunts generations