Adoption Makes It All Better

A recent reunion of a “Hicks Baby” and her original mother brought up again how adoption is magic.

The comments never cease to amaze me. “You don’t know how hard it was then.” – “He saved those babies when their mothers were going to abort them.” – “The children were loved by their real parents, the adoptive parents.”

In other words, just shut up and be grateful. Never mind that the good doctor did perform illegal abortions. He had so much business in this regard the town installed a landing strip for small planes to come in from out of state. These weren’t poor women he was helping. These were women and girls from families of means. So much for pro-lifers’ claim he saved babies. He “saved” the ones he could sell, if he could convince the woman he was doing what was best for her.

Then there’s the fact he lied to the ones who wanted to keep their children and told them their baby died, again so he could sell the child on the black market. These were not legal, vetted adoptions. This was human trafficking. This man who locals revere to this day as the quintessential country doctor, giving medicine and even surgery for free, charged $100 per abortion and $600 to $1000 per adoption. Is it any wonder he “saved” them?

And the noble adoptive parents were complicit. No pesky home studies or the possibility of the mother changing her mind. That can’t happen when the whole operation is illegal.

Ignore that there were no records kept and no way to trace the lost family. Forget that at the time, this doctor was okay with the idea of these babies growing up and never knowing their true parentage, or possibly even that they were adopted. No medical history. No history, period. He had no way of knowing DNA testing would come along decades later and blow the lid off his secrets.

No. As long as the word “adoption” is in there, no matter how misused, it’s all good. Because adoption is a miracle.

I hope you’re burning in hell, Thomas Jugarthy Hicks. And I hope your cellmate is Georgia Tann.

Elle Cuardaigh is author of The Tangled Red Thread and contributor of The Adoptee Survival Guide.