Has ABC Finally Done It?

ABC-TV | 4-26-04 | Houmatt

[codyjacksmom]

Thank you for sharing. It is good that you have kept your integrity, and that of your family, intact. I have never been in this position myself, and therefore, do not understand the situation as you do. I do still feel that this is just a network exploiting people at their weakest. It is just a sad situation all around.

[Petronski]

They have been sliding into the cess pool for years.

Disney has been happily splashing about in the cess pool for quite some time.

[WhiteGuy]

Anything for a buck....................

It looks to me that all those involved are adults and capable of entering into a contract.

Legally, sounds ok......................

I'm not motivated to watch, but I havn't seen 20/20 in years.

I find it neither interesting or entertaining, and certainly not funny.

Sick?

Not in my opinion, but I really don't care what abc puts on.

[drjimmy]

My wife and I had the same reaction as just about everyone here when we saw the promo last night. It was bad enough that they were selling it like a reality game show, but when we saw at the end that this was a Barbara Walters 20/20 special, we were even more sickened. ABC wants to have it both ways: making it look like "Survivor" in order to draw an audience, then calling it "news" and a "public service" in order to lend legitimacy to this horror. From ABC's press release on the show:

In a unique television event, Barbara Walters documents a young mother’s journey as she interviews five anxious couples vying for a child of their own. “I was basically deciding if they’re going to have children or not. I was kind of playing God,” says Jessica, 16, about her heart wrenching choice of who would adopt and raise her unborn baby boy while allowing her to continue to play a part in his life. “20/20” cameras are there as each couple tries to convince the pregnant girl that they would be the best parents for her soon-to-be-born baby. But after all of the heartache, will the 8 ½ month pregnant high school sophomore really be ready to sign away her legal rights once the baby is born and she can hold him in her arms? The emotional journey airs on “20/20’s” “Be My Baby” on FRIDAY, APRIL 30 (10 – 11 pm ET) on the ABC Television Network.

“20/20” has a long history of reporting on adoption stories, including exposing the plight of Romania’s forgotten children and uniting Cambodian orphans with their new American families. Walters introduced her own adopted daughter Jackie during an adoption special, “Born in My Heart ,” two years ago. "Adoption is a subject dear to our heart," said “20/20” Executive Producer David Sloan, "and the story of Jessica's baby is particularly powerful and compelling."

[NarniaSC]

I turned to my wife and said, "they're making game shows out of people's most vulnerable moments!" I could swear one woman behind Walters in the promo had that classic sunken depression stare.

In addition, these extreme makeover / "swan" shows are stunningly exploitative. It's only a matter of time until they have a screwed up plastic surgery or a suicide.

[martin gibson]

The question I put to you: Has ABC finally gone too far in turning the adoption of a child into what is for all intents and purposes a game show?...

What is it exactly you think television does, anyway...?

[hosepipe]

America quickly becoming Jerry Springer'ized.
TV is becoming "gossip" on crack. Looking NOT in on the seemier sides of America but creating them where they never were before. From Bachelor to Bachelorette. Not living life but watching others do it because your too busy paying taxes and outrageous credit card bills.

[Poohbah]

Great. A new low in reality TV...

[ValerieUSA]

I, too, saw the promo. It was horrifying. Walters needs to be committed to an insane asylum or prison, along with any adult who would participate in this flesh market. What is the definition of slavery, anyway? How do we draw the line between human bondage and adoption? Has ABC ever heard the word, "ethics"? Roll over, Rome, we're about to join you in the heap of dead decadent civilizations.

[lsucat]

You are right, this is exploitation. I don't know how the "winning parents" in this look their child in the eye later on and explain the circumstances of their being placed. The problem with many adoptive parents is that they are so desperate, they don't think about the children. I know the desperation. I just wish people would think about more than what they want when something as serious as a child's well-being hangs in the balance.

We're on the same side. Let ABC know how sick they are for doing this. A child's life, a birthmother's pain, an adoptive couple's desperation...this is all serious business...definitely not for entertainment purposes.

[hchutch]

I'll definitely pass on this...

I got "Victory at Sea" on DVD at Best Buy a couple weeks ago... a few episodes of that will be time MUCH better spent.

Or there's anything on History Channel, Discovery Wings, etc. That's the nice thing about cable... it gives you a lot of other options than the network trash.

[new cruelty]

I hope that lying b- Omorosa doesn't muck up the works. Oh wait, wrong show.

[Wright is right!]

"20/20 is not a commercial enterprise? Saying a promo is not a commercial is like saying that because an apple is not an orange which is a fruit that an apple is not a fruit."

Falacious on both counts. Advertising a program on one's own network is a promo. Advertising a network program on ANOTHER network is a commercial. Advertising a product or service (or political candidate) in any medium is a commercial, so long as the medium itself is not what's being advertised.

If ABC runs a spot on its own air for another ABC show, it's a promo. If ABC buys ad time on Fox News Channel to advertise 20/20, then THAT is a commercial. Which might happen to run next to a Fox News promo.

This was my business for thirty years, my dear.

Michael

[codyjacksmom]

I agree completely. Contacting the networks is always a good idea in cases such as this.

[Made In The USA]

PLEASE tell me this isn't true.

I couldn't imagine that the media could sink this low. It would really put into perspective what ABC/Disney (and much of the left wing) believes about the FAMILY.

Knowing how my wife and I struggled for YEARS to have our first child, how emotionally draining it was, this is not fodder for a reality show.

This is sick.

[ladtx]

Gee, why not just put the kid on the auction block?

[RinaseaofDs]

Promo or commercial, who cares? It's sick.

Why don't they just put two mothers in a pit and let them knife fight over the child?

We are headed for Rome. We're nearly there.

I've an adopted daughter. We had two previous fall throughs. Fall throughs are when you are chosen to be the adopted parent, and the mother makes another decision at the last minute.

There is sick and evil, like me holding the girl's hand as she's having the baby, only to have her reveal that she never intended to put the baby up for adoption, but to use the process to avoid arrest on meth charges (yup, no idea until it happened).

In most adoption processes, you don't know that your 'profile' is out (a package of information about you, and why you want to adopt). Your profile goes out with two others, and the mother either decides or asks for other profiles.

No matter how you slice it, the Walter's piece is sick on a level that makes demons smile. It doesn't matter how its packaged.

I'll tell you this: if the money spent on the pro-abortion stand was spent on a pro-adoption movement, we might not have an abortion problem.

I wish I would have had the time to have launched a pro-adoption counter march in WDC at the same time as the pro-abortion movement. Would have been interesting.

[FreepLady]

"Which couple will be the first to conceive?...We go inside their homes and watch as they try!...Next on 20/20"

I don't doubt this is next!

[j_tull]

Has ABC finally gone too far in turning the adoption of a child into what is for all intents and purposes a game show?

Only if the contending couples are sufficiently diverse, and/or queer.

[candeee]

That may have been your business, dear, but you are still wrong. Perhaps in your occupation that is how the word is used; that doesn't make it correct. In the English language, a commercial is any advertisement on tv or radio.