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The Girls Who Went Away
- The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
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Publisher's summary
In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Fessler brilliantly brings to life the voices of more than 100 women as well as the spirit of those times, allowing the women to tell their stories in gripping and intimate detail.
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What listeners say about The Girls Who Went Away
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kim Kavanagh
- 01-05-17
Sad but True ... and Helpful
What did you love best about The Girls Who Went Away?
The stories were heartwrenching. Each of them different but all connected in the heartache. I have my own story, and it's different and yet the same. It was healing for me and I recommend, HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who has given up and I use 'given up' purposefully, their baby for adoption.
What did you like best about this story?
The honesty. The chance for a happy ending.
What does Coleen Marlo bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
This was my first audio book so it's hard for me to answer, but I enjoyed the listening.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
There are a lot of secrets out there. A lot of young girls being shamed and traumatized by the way society views teen pregnancy and it's so unfair. These girls were just the ones who got found out, all the girls, or most of them anyway were having sex.
Any additional comments?
I read this book as recommended by my social worker as I was working on finding my son. It was like I had a friend and I highly recommend it. P.S. I found my son and life is good. Next week for the first time in 40 years I get to wish him a happy birthday. Can not wait!!
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14 people found this helpful
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- Nicole Crosby
- 02-25-19
Very Healing....
This book is another step toward healing for me. Especially those speaking to the inability to attach to people... wow! It makes so much sense! My mother was always secretive about my beginnings. Lied about it. Made stuff up. I’ve pieced the facts together and now I realize she was sent away to a Florence Critteton home in Charlotte, NC. This book provides my first honest glimpse at what my mother may have experienced in the unwed mother’s home in 1972!!! I just remembered a ceramic cat she kept that’s probably from the crafts she participated in? My grandmother talked her into keeping me and hindsight informs me that was probably a mistake. Some people shouldn’t have children, but despite her flawed character, I can sympathize with her and forgive her for always putting herself before me. I found my father in 2018 via dna genealogy and he is great! He never knew about me. He gave me the truth and honesty I always craved. We both served in the Air Force and I finally found people I resemble. I even found cousins on my mother’s side who had similar experiences, but were adopted. I’m grateful. I’m grateful for Ann and others for telling their stories. Thank you! It’s healing.
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12 people found this helpful
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- DC_Texas
- 08-21-18
Must Read for Adoptees
I was adopted in 1971 and read this book at the urging of a fellow adoptee. This has been so eye opening and is a must read for anyone adopted. I’ve always had a great respect for my birth mother and what she must have endured to give me life. My Mom always spoke of her in a very positive light. Adoption was very normal and positive in our home. After reading this book, I find myself wanting to get over my fears and really search for her. Thank you to all the brave women who shared their stories with Ann Fessler - you have raised the shades on what really happened to the girls who went away.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Lisa
- 06-08-16
A must read for birth moms and adoptees!
As an adoptee, currently searching for my birth mother, this was an invaluable resource to help me prepare for whatever I find. I am overwhelmed with sadness of how cruel and insensitive the treatment of unwed mothers was during this era. I had no idea. Thank you Ms Fessler for shedding the light on this important topic and for the women having the willingness to tell their stories. I hope and pray women who endured this travesty find some sense of solace in knowing their story is finally being told!
Thank you!
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8 people found this helpful
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- STT Kate
- 08-17-16
Healing - cathartic
I highly recommend this book to adoptees, birthmothers and anyone who knows someone in the adoption triangle. Without any exaggeration As a birthmother myself it has changed if not saved my life.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Laura B
- 01-26-17
Great Book
These true stories were difficult to hear at times. But everybody should know what these women went through. I am an adoptee and I am so glad I read this book.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Sean
- 02-20-17
wow....I am an adoptee and a birthmom
it was an intense emotional book. it put words to some of the struggles I had in my heart that I didn't have words for before. it opened my heart to the women who suffer in silence. it gave me a new perspective on my birthmom and my brothers birthmom.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Lavon
- 10-03-16
Great book
Great book. It is detailed in the accounts and life style of the era of the time. It gave me a better understanding of why children were given up
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2 people found this helpful
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- iraida
- 04-05-16
Haunting and heartfelt
I loved this documentary. Opened my eyes to the harsh realities faced by women of past generations and gave me a new perspective on adoption!
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- Abigail Johnson
- 03-16-23
I lost my son to the modern industry of adoption in 2008
I am so incredibly grateful to Ann Fessler for interviewing all of these mothers and writing this book.
I was raised in conservative evangelicalism. I was shamed for my body and not taught about my fertility or how to protect myself but rather that it was my duty to protect men from temptation. When I fell in love and became pregnant at 17, I was so afraid and ashamed. My parents sent me away to a maternity home that was attached to an adoption agency. You see I had never been given any freedoms or agency in my life and the one secret thing I did resulted in ultimate shame on my family, so it was easy for the maternity home and my parents to shame me into relinquishment. I begged to be allowed to keep my son but I was told no by every authority figure involved and I didn’t know enough to fight harder than I did. I did everything I could think of to keep my son but I failed to find my voice, my power before it was too late. I live in so much grief. Adoption facilitators are still able to function today as they did during the baby scoop era. Only today, millions less unprepared women get or remain pregnant thanks to birth control, plan b pill and abortion access.
Thank you for exposing the truth Ann Fessler 🧡
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A Daughter's Deadly Deception
- The Jennifer Pan Story
- By: Jeremy Grimaldi
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From the outside looking in, Jennifer Pan seemed like a model daughter living a perfect life. The ideal child, the one her immigrant parents saw, was studying to become a pharmacist at the University of Toronto. But there was a dark, deceptive side to the angelic young woman. In reality, Jennifer spent her days in the arms of her high-school sweetheart, Daniel. In an attempt to lead the life she dreamed of, she would do almost anything. For many years she led this double life. But when her father discovered her web of lies, his ultimatum was severe. And so, too, was her revenge.
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Good Story - Odd Formating
- By CrimsonYell on 01-24-20
By: Jeremy Grimaldi
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American Baby
- A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
- By: Gabrielle Glaser
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Gabrielle Glaser, Margaret Katz
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.
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I felt the love of my birth mom...
- By Mary H. on 02-03-21
By: Gabrielle Glaser
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You Don't Look Adopted
- By: Anne Heffron
- Narrated by: Anne Heffron
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Can writing your story save your life? I should have come with a manual. My parents thought they were getting one thing when they adopted me - a baby of their own - when what they got was a human being with a story of her own. As a child, I traded safety for silence. As an adult, I had no idea who I was, why I quit nearly everything I started, why I struggled with things that came more easily to my friends (jobs, relationships, finances, self-esteem), why I seemed hell-bent on throwing myself away.
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Courageous and raw
- By Christine Warmus Murphy on 08-30-19
By: Anne Heffron
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It Was Me All Along
- A Memoir
- By: Andie Mitchell
- Narrated by: Andie Mitchell
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
All her life, Andie Mitchell had eaten lustily and mindlessly. Food was her babysitter, her best friend, her confidant, and it provided a refuge from her fractured family. But when she stepped on the scale on her 20th birthday and it registered a shocking 268 pounds, she knew she had to change the way she thought about food and herself; that her life was at stake.
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Wanted to love this...
- By AndreaJane on 01-16-15
By: Andie Mitchell
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Empty
- A Memoir
- By: Susan Burton
- Narrated by: Susan Burton
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For almost 30 years, Susan Burton hid her obsession with food and the secret life of compulsive eating and starving that dominated her adolescence. This is the relentlessly honest, fiercely intelligent story of living with both anorexia and binge-eating disorder, moving past her shame, and learning to tell her secret.
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Pick another book
- By A. I. Keller on 07-18-20
By: Susan Burton
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This Is Not a Love Story
- A Memoir
- By: Judy Brown
- Narrated by: Sarah Rose Humphrey
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A razor-sharp, hilarious, and poignant memoir about growing up in the closed world of the ultraorthodox Jewish community. The third of six children in a family that harks back to a gloried Hassidic dynasty, Judy Brown grew up with the legacy of centuries of religious teaching and the faith and lore that sustained her people for generations.
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More than a love story...
- By Margaret on 09-02-15
By: Judy Brown
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A Daughter's Deadly Deception
- The Jennifer Pan Story
- By: Jeremy Grimaldi
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the outside looking in, Jennifer Pan seemed like a model daughter living a perfect life. The ideal child, the one her immigrant parents saw, was studying to become a pharmacist at the University of Toronto. But there was a dark, deceptive side to the angelic young woman. In reality, Jennifer spent her days in the arms of her high-school sweetheart, Daniel. In an attempt to lead the life she dreamed of, she would do almost anything. For many years she led this double life. But when her father discovered her web of lies, his ultimatum was severe. And so, too, was her revenge.
-
-
Good Story - Odd Formating
- By CrimsonYell on 01-24-20
By: Jeremy Grimaldi
-
American Baby
- A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
- By: Gabrielle Glaser
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Gabrielle Glaser, Margaret Katz
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.
-
-
I felt the love of my birth mom...
- By Mary H. on 02-03-21
By: Gabrielle Glaser
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You Don't Look Adopted
- By: Anne Heffron
- Narrated by: Anne Heffron
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Can writing your story save your life? I should have come with a manual. My parents thought they were getting one thing when they adopted me - a baby of their own - when what they got was a human being with a story of her own. As a child, I traded safety for silence. As an adult, I had no idea who I was, why I quit nearly everything I started, why I struggled with things that came more easily to my friends (jobs, relationships, finances, self-esteem), why I seemed hell-bent on throwing myself away.
-
-
Courageous and raw
- By Christine Warmus Murphy on 08-30-19
By: Anne Heffron
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It Was Me All Along
- A Memoir
- By: Andie Mitchell
- Narrated by: Andie Mitchell
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All her life, Andie Mitchell had eaten lustily and mindlessly. Food was her babysitter, her best friend, her confidant, and it provided a refuge from her fractured family. But when she stepped on the scale on her 20th birthday and it registered a shocking 268 pounds, she knew she had to change the way she thought about food and herself; that her life was at stake.
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Wanted to love this...
- By AndreaJane on 01-16-15
By: Andie Mitchell
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The Turnaway Study
- The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion
- By: Diana Greene Foster PhD
- Narrated by: Samantha Desz, full cast
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
What happens when a woman seeking an abortion is turned away? To answer this question, Diana Greene Foster assembled a team of scientists—psychologists, epidemiologists, demographers, nurses, physicians, economists, sociologists, and public health researchers—to conduct a 10-year study. They followed a thousand women from across America, some of whom received abortions, some of whom were turned away. Now, for the first time, Dr. Foster presents the results of this landmark study in one extraordinary, groundbreaking book.
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Scientific Research on Women's Reproductive Health
- By Clinton Conley on 07-09-21
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Escape
- By: Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When she was 18 years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger - a man 32 years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn's heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church.
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Like a train wreck you can't turn away
- By Cheryl D on 10-28-07
By: Carolyn Jessop, and others
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The Story of Jane
- The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service
- By: Laura Kaplan
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
First published in 1997, The Story of Jane recounts the evolution of Jane, the underground group in Chicago that performed abortion services before the procedure was legalized. An extraordinary history by one of its members, this is the first account of Jane's evolution, the conflicts within the group, and the impact its work had both on the women it helped and the members themselves.
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Will we need Jane again?
- By kate2010 on 10-28-20
By: Laura Kaplan
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You're the Only One I've Told
- The Stories Behind Abortion
- By: Dr. Meera Shah
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Lisa Reneé Pitts
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For a long time, when people asked Dr. Meera Shah what she did, she would tell them she was a doctor and leave it at that. "I'm an abortion provider," she will now say. And an interesting thing started to happen each time she met someone new. One by one, people would confide that in fact they'd had an abortion themselves. And the refrain was often the same: You're the only one I've told. This book collects those stories as they've been told to Shah to humanize abortion and to combat myths that persist in the discourse that surrounds it.
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Open your mind
- By Evan on 02-03-22
By: Dr. Meera Sha