HDNET’S “Dan Rather Reports” Investigates The Traumatic Practice Of Forced Adoption
Contact:
Colette Carey
HDNet
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HDNET’S “DAN RATHER REPORTS” INVESTIGATES THE TRAUMATIC PRACTICE OF FORCED ADOPTION
“Adopted or Abducted?” examines the treatment of unwed mothers in the 1950’s through the 1970’s…and today – Tuesday, May 1 at 8:00 p.m. ET
DALLAS (April 26, 2012) -How would it feel to be forced to give away a child for adoption? And, how many women, most now in middle age, are tirelessly searching for those children without any assistance from the agencies that arranged the adoptions?
“Dan Rather Reports: Adopted or Abducted?” will devote the entire hour on Tuesday, May 1 st to the heartbreaking accounts of women – most of whom were teens at the time – who were forced to hand their babies over for adoption.
In a sweeping and exhaustive six month investigation that spanned from Australia to the United States, producers from Dan Rather Reports conducted nearly one hundred interviews with victims of forced adoptions – some of them speaking for the very first time. What they found was a widespread and shocking practice, even at the height of the sexual revolution in the 1960’s and 70’s when unwed pregnancy was still seen as a disgrace, of babies born out of wedlock forcefully put up for adoption.
The many women who felt they were not given a choice, or that they were unable to change their minds as their children were taken from them minutes after birth, continue to be haunted by questions about their children.
“Is she alive? Is she healthy? It’s the not knowing that rips your heart out,” said Carla Clary, a 61 year old woman who was forced to give up her first child, a daughter, for adoption in 1967. Speaking exclusively to “Dan Rather Reports,” Clary added, “She’s part of me. She’s my child. I gave birth to her. And having had another daughter and knowing how precious she is to me– I have another one out there someplace that I would like to be a part of my life before I die.”