An adoptee looking for their birth parents is always an emotional journey. However, one woman made a shocking discovery about her own life when doing just that.
Jane Blasio was 6 years old when her parents, Jim and Joan, informed Jane and her 11-year-old sister, Michelle, that they were adopted. At the time, Jane didn't think much about it, but as she got older, that moment became the beginning of something for her.
"It's like that moment was burned into me," the mid-fifties law enforcement officer told People.
In 1971, Jane Blasio was 6 years old when she learned she was adopted. For decades, she would search for her birth parents. Nothing could have prepared her for what she found.
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Jane's search led her to Thomas Hicks. The small-town Georgia doctor was known for performing abortions. What many didn't know was that he was running an operation where he sold children in the back alley of his practice throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Jane discovered that she was one of more than 200 children who were illegally adopted from behind the clinic. It made Jane wonder about the other children and where they were, so she decided to use the information she learned to help them. She worked to grow a network of "Hicks' Babies" and help them find their birth parents or other relatives.
"My father knew [that Hicks' actions were illegal], but my mother just wanted a baby and didn't want to know anything, so my dad was going to do whatever would make her happy," Jane says of her adoptive parents' reasoning.
She wrote about the entirety of her story in her book, Taken at Birth. She also discussed it in a TLC series of the same name.
Jane was still a teen when she first learned about Hicks and what happened. She spent countless hours in the library. Jane was 23 years old in 1988 when she took her first trip to McCaysville, after losing adoptive mom Joan to cancer. On her deathbed, Joan made her husband promise to share everything he knew with Jane.
"My parents bought a child in a way that gave me no option but to search and possibly find no answers," she says.
"That's not love, that's desperation."
In her research, Jane discovered that when expectant mothers went to Hicks for abortions, he'd sometimes convince them to see the pregnancy through. He then took the infants and "adopted" them out for profit.
Jane discovered many even believe he duped women who were keeping their babies into believing they had a stillborn, then selling the child. In some cases, he even induced them, leading to low birth weights and health problems later in life.
Most of the children were adopted to families in the Akron area. These families couldn't afford traditional adoption methods and couldn't conceive on their own for a variety of reasons. Jane continues to work with others who share her circumstances to track down more who were affected and help them as they navigate this shocking news.
