Liz reminded me in this entry about the 20/20 show that Dawn posted about: 20/20 is going to air a show where five families "compete" to be the adoptive family of a new baby. This is so crass, so horrific -- it's treating a human infant as nothing more than a door prize, it's using the desperation of the parents (which they even use as their lead in the ad -- hey, drama! desperate parents!) as fodder for "reality" TV. I thought after Fox sank so low with the Swan show about having so many women having their bodies cut up and mutilated for public consumption that TV could not have fallen any lower, but my god, they have. And 20/20 wants to think of itself as a news show? What's next? "Hey, let's sell someone into slavery and see how they do and if they can escape?" or "Hey, let's put a bunch of untrained people on a dangerous job and see who loses a limb or their life first!" Why not? We've just made a baby a prize.
If there aren't social workers and agencies all over this, there should be.
Please do like Dawn and Liz suggest and write a letter to 20/20 by clicking here for the e-mail form and ask them to please not show this. It may not make a difference, but then again, if enough of us do it, it may. (I think Liz's letter is excellent; I used hers as a template for what I wanted to say.)
Posted by toni at April 27, 2004 08:21 PMThank you for the link! I saw the commerical on Sunday night and was stunned speechless. I've already written to ABC, and have shared the link with the mother's club I belong to, encouraging other women to write in as well.
After initial horror, I've followed all of the links and I'm beginning to think that it's a documentary that has been promoted very badly - see this story http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/19700.htm in the NY Post. Has the programme aired in the States yet?
Posted by: Daisy at April 29, 2004 03:47 AM