"That moment was burned into me"
Jane Blasio and her sister's world turned upside down when they were told they were adopted. The sisters, who were 6 and 11-years-old at the time, were playing outside when their dad Jim called them inside.
"We have something to tell you and it may be hard for you to understand. You two were adopted. Do you know what that means?" he told the girls.
The young girl didn't really understand the magnitude of her dad's revelation at the time, but what he told her on that day in 1971 stuck with her all her life.
She told
People, "It's like that moment was burned into me."
Blasio wanted to find out who her birth parents were, but her search led her to the most shocking discovery of all. Blasio and her sister were sold to her parents.
She found out that an abortion doctor in Georgia named Thomas Hicks had been running an "illicit baby-selling operation" during the 1940s and 1960s.
"My father knew [Hicks' operation was 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," she explained.
Blasio found out about Hicks' operation when looking at her birth certificate, which had illegally listed Jim and Joan as her birth parents.
She said the discovery has led her to hundreds of other people that were sold by Hicks. She spent over 30 years investigating Hicks and vowed to help other 'Hicks babies' find their birth parents and relatives.
It is believed Thomas Hicks illegally sold and gave away over 200 babies at his clinic in McCaysville, Georgia.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQQ0u18HCQz/
The doctor advertised the illegal services in phone booths, at bus stations, and on bridges. He reportedly encouraged women, who were seeking abortions, to carry their babies to term. He would then sell the babies to couples for $800-$1000.
He gave the adoptive parents fake birth certificates and left no trace of the birth mother.
ABC News reports that Hicks even lied to some of his patients and told them their baby had died, and would then sell it to a couple at the back of his clinic.
Hicks gave up his medical license in 1964 after he was found guilty of performing an illegal abortion. He died 25 years before news of his illegal baby-selling operation came to light.
Jane Blasio's book Taken at Birth: Stolen Babies, Hidden Lies, and My Journey to Finding Home is out this August.
