The Reference Desk
Have you ever fallen down a rabbit hole into an obscure topic and suddenly need to know all the details and consume all the media related to it? You've found your people. Every other Wednesday, librarians Hailee and Katie take turns sharing the topic that has them bewitched. After a deep-dive into the subject-du-jour, fill your "to read" list with their related book recommendations.
The Reference Desk
The Hicks Clinic
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The Reference Desk
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Season 2
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Episode 6
This week, Hailee talks about the Hicks Clinic, a small, community clinic in McCaysville, GA where a doctor sold over 200 babies and performed illegal abortions, sometimes against the will of the mother, in the 50s and 60s.
Links:
A History Not Yet Laid to Rest - The Atlantic
How Many Babies Did Thomas Hicks Put Up for Adoption? - heavy.
‘Black market baby’ meets biological father in Gallatin - Gallatin News
Black Market Babies Reunited After More Than 50 Years - New York Post
ReproductiveRights.org - World Abortion Laws
What If Roe Fell? Interactive US Map from Reproductive Rights
Abortion Access - Planned Parenthood
Recommended Media
Television
- Taken at Birth - TLC docuseries, available on Discovery+
Books
Non-Fiction
- Taken at Birth by Jane Blasio
- American baby: a mother, a child, and the shadow history of adoption by Gabrielle Glaser
- Booth Girls: pregnancy, adoption, and the secrets we kept by Kim Heikkila
- The girls who went away: the hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler
- Before and After: the Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate
Fiction
- Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate