Adoption

Often presented as an alternative to abortion by anti-choice movements, adoption often leaves an emotional toll on birth parents and relinquished children. Therefore, adoption reform is considered a crucial element in the fight for reproductive justice.

Denmark’s Generous Childcare and Parental Leave Policies Erase 80 Percent of the ‘Motherhood Penalty’ for Working Moms

PUBLISHED 2/13/2026 by

For many women in the U.S. and around the world, motherhood comes with career costs. Can government programs that provide financial support to parents offset the “motherhood penalty” in earnings? Killewald with Therese Christensen, a Danish sociologist, set out to answer this question for moms in Denmark, a Scandinavian country with one of the world’s strongest safety nets.

In an article to be published in an upcoming issue of European Sociological Review, Christensen and Killewald show how mothers’ increased income from the state, such as from child benefits and paid parental leave, offset about 80 percent of Danish moms’ average earnings losses.

Novel ‘Truth Is’ Shows What It Really Takes for a Teen to Get an Abortion in 2025

PUBLISHED 11/22/2025 by

Truth Is is a pro-choice novel in every sense of the phrase. Truth’s choice to move forward with an abortion is made early on in the novel and the majority of the book focuses on her life and her choices after her decision.

I hope that years from now, a student picks up this book and reads about the challenges that the book’s main character Truth faces and goes, “Is that really how it was back then?”

For adults who engage with Truth’s story, I want us to consider the limitations we sometimes unknowingly put on young people. I want us to consider the heights young people could reach if they were granted opportunities and community support, the way Truth ultimately does in the novel.

Trump’s Republican Trifecta Sets Up Massive Transfer of Tax Dollars from Reproductive Health Clinics to Unregulated Crisis Pregnancy Clinics

PUBLISHED 8/18/2025 by | UPDATED 2/17/2026 at 2:00 P.M. PT

The Trump administration, 119th Congress and John Roberts-led Supreme Court are redirecting federal tax dollars from Planned Parenthood and Title X to bankroll the $2 billion unregulated pregnancy clinic industry—crisis pregnancy centers—positioning it to replace reproductive health clinics nationwide.

The antiabortion industry has long aimed to “replace” Planned Parenthood, and since Roe‘s fall, so-called pro-life operatives claim these clinics fill gaps in prenatal and postpartum care and address maternal and infant mortality. These claims are false. Their mission—to block abortion—directly conflicts with providing actual, lifesaving healthcare.

Project 2025 seeks to disqualify Planned Parenthood from Medicaid and end “religious discrimination in grant selections”—code for funneling federal dollars to crisis pregnancy centers.

“Let’s call this what it is: a calculated, coordinated attack on poor women and families,” says Debra Rosen, executive director of Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch. Low-income women are being denied care at real health centers and funneled into ideological storefronts. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, and the consequences will be deadly—a manufactured, avoidable public health crisis.

Inside Liberty University’s Secret Maternity Home

PUBLISHED 7/10/2025 by

Imagine you’re a pregnant teenager in 1972. Abortion isn’t an option, and you’re not ready to get married… so you might turn to a maternity home for unwed mothers. You’ll live there until the baby is born, then give it up for adoption to redeem yourself from the so-called sin of premarital sex.

On June 23, podcast studio Wondery released the new series Liberty Lost, which investigates the well-kept secret of Liberty University’s Godparent Home, which opened in the 1980s and is still operating today. In the podcast, reproductive rights journalist T. J. Raphael explores the history of the maternity home on the campus of Liberty University, a private evangelical college in Lynchburg, Va. There, staff members coerce young girls into surrendering their babies for adoption by affluent Christian parents in exchange for a full-ride scholarship at Liberty. 

“Maternity homes are on the rise,” Raphael told me. “There might be one near where you live, and maternity homes play a larger role within the wider antiabortion movement.”

Wombs for Hire: Inside Europe’s Underground Surrogacy Networks

PUBLISHED 2/8/2025 by and

The legal landscape of surrogacy remains a complex patchwork across nations, with some countries embracing it while others maintain strict prohibitions. This inconsistency in regulations has created gray areas.

Scientific research highlights the possibility of abuse arising from gaps in legal frameworks and disputes, whether surrogacy is legal or not. It points to unethical practices such as trafficking of women, coercion of both surrogates and prospective parents by agencies, lack of respect for bodily autonomy or informed consent, ‘sham’ procedures and multiple embryo exchanges.

Amid this contentious landscape, the European Parliament Council took decisive action on Jan. 23, 2024, reaching a provisional agreement to classify exploitative surrogacy practices as human trafficking. The measure was formally adopted on May 27, 2024. The new framework imposes strict penalties on those who exploit women through forced surrogacy or deceptive practices, while establishing comprehensive support systems for victims. E.U. member states must implement these protections into their national legislation within two years.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland Advances Healing and Justice for Indigenous Peoples

PUBLISHED 11/26/2024 by and

On Friday, Oct. 25, at Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, President Joseph Biden delivered a formal apology on behalf of the United States to an assembly of Native American leaders for the genocidal impact of 150 years of U.S. Indian boarding schools, which sought to erase Indigenous people, culture and languages.

“I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did,” said President Biden. “It’s long overdue.”

This apology came as a result of years of work by Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo. The U.S. Department of the Interior oversees U.S. relations to American Indians, Native Alaskans and Native Hawaiians.

Is Adoption Reform a Missing Element in the Fight for Reproductive Justice?

PUBLISHED 11/20/2024 by

Fresh out of college, with no support from my baby’s father and still relying on my parents, I was thrust into a world of limited options and impossible choices. Little did I know that choosing what society labels “the loving option” would expose me to an unregulated industry rife with predation. Though I have a successful open adoption and immense love for the family I chose, I was unprepared for the depth of my sorrow, shame and guilt—and I had been given no warning.

As we forge ahead in the brawl for fundamental rights, I hope the reproductive justice movement remembers to carry with it the territory of adoption reform.

Texas Sends Millions to Crisis Pregnancy Centers. It’s Meant to Help Needy Families, But No One Knows if It Works.

PUBLISHED 7/11/2024 by , , and

Two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Texas leads the nation in funding for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). The system is meant to help growing families, but it’s riddled with waste and lacks oversight, a ProPublica and CBS News investigation found.

What’s worse: Lawmakers around the country are considering programs modeled on Texas’ CPC system, called Alternatives to Abortion.