Few families are not touched by Australia's history of forced adoption.
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There are the mothers who were coerced to give up their babies, whose trauma triggered depression during later pregnancies.
There are the siblings who have always felt different. People who were consent-takers, or doctors who put false surnames on birth certificates.
People who don't even know they were adopted.
Then there are those who gossiped about the young women that disappeared for months, and today's counsellors, who will help children of those women manage their trauma.
This is to say nothing of the complexity and sensitivity of the issue, which looks different again for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
But we must all ask if we have a story to tell.
We hope others are supported to find the same courage to speak.
Social change was so rapid that it is hard for those who didn't live it to understand how young, particularly unmarried, women were forced to 'give up' their children.
Institutions recognise now that women would "not just get over it", that the removal of choice does equate to coercion - and Shine Lawyers is seeking to hold them accountable for it.
"The ability for the people we now act for in these cases to come forward has been difficult," Shine wrote to the Legal and Social Issues Committee.
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"The effects of the practice on them is lifelong and for a long time they were ignored, belittled or told that it was the best thing for them and their children.
"The apologies made by federal and state parliaments, those made by welfare institutions and religious organisations and made on behalf of public hospitals involved in forced adoption practices has provided some acknowledgement."
But acknowledgement, and with it, catharsis, can only occur through the truth.
