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Law & Order "Charity Case" (2007) – Adoption on the Small Screen
E023 | Law & Order "Charity Case" (2007) –Adoption on the Small Screen
For more than 30 years, the people of New York City have been represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. This is just one of their stories. Join podcast journalist Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic Sullivan Summer as we take on a television institution, Law & Order, and just one of the adoption stories it ripped from the headlines over the years. A celebrity adoptive mother, an African AIDS orphan, and those two, iconic notes: duh duh. What could go wrong?
Law & Order "Charity Case" aired on January 12, 2007. It was written by Nicholas Wootton and directed by Michael Pressman.
This episode of Adoption Pop! aired on May 13, 2026. In it we discussed and/or relied upon:
Dallas Real Housewife LeeAnne Locken's exact quote is: "I'm exhausted. My weave is exhausted. The pantiliner on my underwear is exhausted." And we're exhausted from looking for this video. You can watch it here.
Licensing the L&O theme song is well beyond the Adoption Pop! budget—even the iconic scene change duh duh is copyrighted music garnering royalties for composer Mike Post. Watch him talk about it, and listen to the real thing, here. Free of charge.
Mamuno is a small village settlement on the Botswana side of the Botswana-Namibia border in Africa.
Madonna's I Am Because We Are (2008) documentary was directed by Nathan Rissman. Journalist Jacques Peretti's counternarrative, Madonna & Mercy 'What Really Happened' is available in six parts on YouTube. Part 1 is here.
Koh Ewe, "These Adoptees Were Brought to the US as Babies. Now Some Fear They Were Stolen," Vice (April 27, 2022).
Anna Chlumsky (pronounced CH-lum-skee) plays personal assistant and nanny Mary Calvin to Jennifer Beals's Sofia Archer in this L&O episode. Anna entered the GenX zeitgeist as Vada Sultenfuss in 1991's My Girl and, more recently, played reporter Vivian Kent in Netflix's Inventing Anna, about New York City con artist, Anna Delvey. This is a lot of Annas for one entry.
The text of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 is here.
Robin F. Hansen, Prison Born: Incarceration and Motherhood in the Colonial Shadow (University of Regina Press, 2024). Listen to an interview with the author here. You can read more about forced separation of incarcerated mothers and children in Susan Hatters Friedman et. al, "The Realities of Pregnancy and Mothering While Incarcerated," The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online (May 2020).
Saving Our Sisters is a registered 501(c)(3) organization empowering families, and providing education and resources to make truly informed decisions in the face of unplanned pregnancy.
The Adoption Pop! theme music is The Chase by Audiogreen.
We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode, and what you'd like for us to cover in the future. Find, follow, like, and subscribe to Adoption Pop! at our website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Podcast journalist Haley Radke is at adopteeson.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Filmmaker Kristal Parke is at kristalparke.net, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
Cultural critic Sullivan Summer is at sullivansummer.com, on Instagram, and on Substack.
RIP Thomas J.
View all episodes
By Haley Radke, Kristal Parke, and Sullivan SummerE023 | Law & Order "Charity Case" (2007) –Adoption on the Small Screen
For more than 30 years, the people of New York City have been represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. This is just one of their stories. Join podcast journalist Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic Sullivan Summer as we take on a television institution, Law & Order, and just one of the adoption stories it ripped from the headlines over the years. A celebrity adoptive mother, an African AIDS orphan, and those two, iconic notes: duh duh. What could go wrong?
Law & Order "Charity Case" aired on January 12, 2007. It was written by Nicholas Wootton and directed by Michael Pressman.
This episode of Adoption Pop! aired on May 13, 2026. In it we discussed and/or relied upon:
Dallas Real Housewife LeeAnne Locken's exact quote is: "I'm exhausted. My weave is exhausted. The pantiliner on my underwear is exhausted." And we're exhausted from looking for this video. You can watch it here.
Licensing the L&O theme song is well beyond the Adoption Pop! budget—even the iconic scene change duh duh is copyrighted music garnering royalties for composer Mike Post. Watch him talk about it, and listen to the real thing, here. Free of charge.
Mamuno is a small village settlement on the Botswana side of the Botswana-Namibia border in Africa.
Madonna's I Am Because We Are (2008) documentary was directed by Nathan Rissman. Journalist Jacques Peretti's counternarrative, Madonna & Mercy 'What Really Happened' is available in six parts on YouTube. Part 1 is here.
Koh Ewe, "These Adoptees Were Brought to the US as Babies. Now Some Fear They Were Stolen," Vice (April 27, 2022).
Anna Chlumsky (pronounced CH-lum-skee) plays personal assistant and nanny Mary Calvin to Jennifer Beals's Sofia Archer in this L&O episode. Anna entered the GenX zeitgeist as Vada Sultenfuss in 1991's My Girl and, more recently, played reporter Vivian Kent in Netflix's Inventing Anna, about New York City con artist, Anna Delvey. This is a lot of Annas for one entry.
The text of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 is here.
Robin F. Hansen, Prison Born: Incarceration and Motherhood in the Colonial Shadow (University of Regina Press, 2024). Listen to an interview with the author here. You can read more about forced separation of incarcerated mothers and children in Susan Hatters Friedman et. al, "The Realities of Pregnancy and Mothering While Incarcerated," The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online (May 2020).
Saving Our Sisters is a registered 501(c)(3) organization empowering families, and providing education and resources to make truly informed decisions in the face of unplanned pregnancy.
The Adoption Pop! theme music is The Chase by Audiogreen.
We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode, and what you'd like for us to cover in the future. Find, follow, like, and subscribe to Adoption Pop! at our website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Podcast journalist Haley Radke is at adopteeson.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Filmmaker Kristal Parke is at kristalparke.net, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
Cultural critic Sullivan Summer is at sullivansummer.com, on Instagram, and on Substack.
RIP Thomas J.