A greeting card congratulating people for adopting children has sparked a furious backlash on Facebook.
The card, which is being sold in Tesco supermarkets in the UK, says: “Congratulations on your adoption. You don’t have to be born into a family to be a big part of one.”
The card was posted in a closed Facebook group with more than 1,500 members on Tuesday by one of the group’s admin staff after it was spotted in a Tesco’s branch.
The group, which supports parents who have lost their children to forced adoption in England and Wales, was flooded with comments shortly after the card was posted on their Facebook page.
One of the admin members for the group wrote: “Tesco selling adoption cards celebrating a FORCED Adoption – whatever next – well done TESCO 
They don’t realise we are dealing with 3 parent suicides in the last 2 to 3 weeks as their children were FORCED Adopted never for the parents to see them again.”
Another poster said: “Some people do it for the right reasons but it is a kick in the teeth for those whom have had their child forcibly removed x”
Parents in the group offered suggestions such as: placing “forced adoption” stickers on the cards to raise public awareness about adoption practices in Britain; writing to the customer complaints department at Tesco; and holding protests outside the stores demanding the cards are removed from the shelves.
Several parents reacted strongly to the image of the card. One mother simply posted, “F***ing sick!” While another parent wrote, “Wtf can’t believe that. It’s depressing knowing that our children are not gonna be with us and now this. Sick c**ts whatever next 😡🤬.”
One father added, “Anywhere that supports adoption will not be getting my money. I will not be shopping in Tesco’s any longer. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
While there is still very little research about how child removals affect fathers, emerging research about mothers who lose their children to foster care confirms that they are more likely to commit suicide than mothers whose children are not fostered.
In one study, the researchers discovered that suicide rates among women who lost their children to foster care was almost three times higher and the death rate almost four times higher than those mothers whose children had not gone into foster care.
A second study held that mothers whose children were placed in care were almost five times more likely to die from avoidable causes such as unintentional injury and suicide, and almost three times more like to die from unavoidable causes, including car accidents and heart disease.
And a third study found that when a mother lost her child to the care system, her physical and mental health became significantly worse.
The UK is one of only a small number of countries implementing forced adoption policies which allow the state to remove children from parents without their consent. Parents whose children are placed for adoption often spend several years inside the legal system fighting to get their children back.
Forced, non consensual or involuntary adoption is viewed by most countries as an outdated and harmful practice, which has been overtaken by consensual and open adoptions in the majority of countries around the world.
Many thanks to Tum Mum for alerting us to this development.
Researching Reform 