Broken Ties
For most people, the birth of a baby is an exciting and wonderful experience. Yet for thousands of unmarried women in the not-so-distant past, the birth of a child was fraught with emotional pain, guilt, and secrecy. Often, due to the mother’s unwed circumstances, these young women were forced into a decision they did not fully comprehend: to give their babies up for adoption and never see them again. These young mothers had no idea of what the life-long impact of this “decision” would be.

This deeply moving documentary explores filmmaker Debra Baker’s own experience of being pregnant and unwed at age 18 in 1967. Through her own commentary and through interviews with her sister, mother, and social worker, Ms. Baker probes into the reasons she complied with a family decision to enter a home for unwed mothers (such “homes” proliferated before abortion was legalized in the 1970s) and surrender her baby boy to adoption. With both eloquence and restraint the film illuminates the profound emotional ramifications of the filmmaker’s experience while placing it in historical and social perspective.

Debra Baker produced, directed, wrote, and edited “Broken Ties”.

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