Woman sold on black market as a baby searches for her biological parents

Decades after she was taken from her birth mother and sold on the black market, a woman is on the hunt for her biological parents.

A woman who was sold on the black market by her birth mother’s doctor is on the hunt to find her biological family decades later.

Jane Blasio had no inkling that she was adopted until she discovered that the date of birth listed in her baby book did not match the one printed on her birth certificate, The Sun reported.

After decades of investigation, Ms Blasio learnt how her parents, from the US state of Ohio, had driven to McCaysville, Georgia to collect a baby they believed was up for adoption.

Jane Blasio is searching for her parents. Picture: Taken At Birth/YouTube

The couple paid $1000 ($A1314), believing these were to cover the birth mother’s medical expenses, to Dr Thomas Hicks.

Dr Hicks then handed the couple a baby from the back door of his practice.

The parents drove back to Akron, Ohio where they were told they could expect to receive Ms Blasio’s birth certificate in the post.

What they didn’t know was that Ms Blasio’s biological mother had no idea that she was alive, let alone that she had been put up for adoption.

According to the New York Post, Ms Blasio is just one of more than 200 newborns sold by Dr Hicks, during the 1950s and ’60s.

As part of his practice, Dr Hicks performed abortions, which were illegal at the time.

Dr Hicks sold more than 200 babies. Picture: Taken At Birth/YouTube

But occasionally, when women came to him for an abortion, he instead coaxed them to carry their babies to term — then took the infants off their hands and sold them.

It is believed that he would also deliberately induce mothers, leading them to believe that their children were stillborn before handing them over to the adoptive parents for a fee.

“We know now that he was telling women that their baby died and he would sell them,” Ms Blasio explained in the new series Taken At Birth.

This is consistent with many of the Hicks babies’ low recorded birth weights, with some weighing as little as 1.3kg.

Most of the children were adopted by Akron-area families who couldn’t afford the costly traditional route of adoption and many of whom were unaware of Dr Hicks’ dark methods.

The mind-blowing story is the subject of a TLC series, Taken at Birth, which attempts to crack open the mystery of the doctor’s scheme and reunite some of the “Hicks babies” with their birth families.

“I was a black market baby and I’ve been investigating Dr Hicks for my entire life,” Ms Blasio explains on the show.

“How for nearly two decades, does a doctor get away with illegally selling hundreds of babies out of the back door of his clinic.”

The documentary sees Ms Blasio reunited with some of the babies sold at the clinic as they attempt to solve the decades old mystery and reunite them with their families.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and has been republished here with permission.