Reproductive Justice in Adoption

First/birth parents, formerly-fostered people, and adopted people working to dramatically increase bodily autonomy and self-determination for pregnant people considering adoption.

Our Story

RJiA is building a groundbreaking online information & resource hub for pregnant people considering adoption.

We need your help to make it a reality!

WHO:

First/Birth parents & adopted people building support structures for pregnant people considering adoption

WHERE:

Online & everywhere—accessible, modern, mobile-first design for crisis & overwhelm

WHAT:

  • 📱 Comprehensive, trauma-informed information designed for accessibility & crisis

  • 👥 Adoption-knowledgeable Options Counseling & Peer Support Hotline (phone, text, & chat)

  • 🍼 Searchable Resource Map & Database with guidance & navigation tools

  • 🗣️ multi-media library of lived experience

  • 🤰🏽 Anonymous User Forum moderated for safety & security

  • 📆 Virtual Accompaniment to appointments with potentially coercive actors 

  • 📣 Healing justice & Leadership Development program for first/birth parents

  • 🤝🏼 Capacity Building Trainings & Support for values-aligned organizations & workers including birth workers, healthcare professionals, and legal advocates

Donate Now

Reproductive Justice in Adoption is a fiscally sponsored project of Elephant Circle 501(c)(3)

THE WHY:

The multi-billion dollar adoption industry - largely anti-abortion and religiously affiliated - is rife with misinformation, disinformation, and the coercion of pregnant people.

Some adoption agencies & other predatory entities spend up to $10,000 per day on internet ads to find vulnerable and marginalized pregnant people in service of a starkly outsized and competitive market demand for adoptable babies.

Online and in-person ads target BIPOC and other low-income communities, reproductive health clinics, colleges and universities, and other places where pregnant people may lack the financial and/or social support to parent their own children.

What the Research Says:

  • 82% of people who relinquished children for adoption wanted to parent, but lacked the financial resources to do so

  • 88% Medicaid recipients*

  • 75% annual income less than $10,000*

  • 84% wished they would have had access to information that could have helped them parent their child

  • 53% said they felt pressured to place their child for adoption

Crawford, Marcus & Maddenn, Elissa & Ryan, Scott & Aguiniga, Donna. (2016). Understanding option counseling experiences in adoption: A quantitative analysis of birth parents and professionals.

*Sisson, Gretchen. (2022). Who are the women who relinquish infants for adoption? Domestic adoption and contemporary birth motherhood in the United States. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. 54. 10.1363/psrh.12193.

  • "Once I was discharged, I wanted to go back to the hospital and just tell them that I changed my mind. I did call the agency and I said, look, I'm revoking my consent. They threatened to call CPS on me (Child Protective Services) if I didn't sign and, yeah, at the time my house had termites and roaches, and everything else--I would have lost her. I would have lost her and they would have found any way to get me to sign. I was just so angry with everybody."

    Birth mother participant

  • I remember, first, I looked up adoption, and then just Utah. A lot of the things I found, I had no idea what they were. I saw adoption websites that were really weird. They were just catalogs and pages and pages of people [prospective adoptive parents]. They had all these filters that you could put on there. It just creeped me out. The websites were predominately religious and I was not about to have a religious organization facilitate the process. So that's when I kind of realized this isn't where I need to be. I'm not going to find anything on Google."

    Birth mother participant

  • “I don't know that they prepared me for how emotionally traumatizing it would be, even though it's open. I kind of thought, oh, well, I'll be able to see them, and they'll know who I am and this is not gonna be a problem. They didn't really prepare me for the fact that your emotional bond is cut. It's hard. I know, it's gonna be hard on those girls when they get older, even if they don't know it, you know. That's something that they never told me about.”

    Birth mother participant

  • "..[the agency] said, well you have less than 24 hours to sign the paperwork. They didn't give me any information about what paperwork I was signing. I was hopped up on pain meds, to the extreme because I was in so much pain [from C section]...and they didn't tell me that was against the law for them to have done. Florida is one of the most strict adoption states where once it's [legal consent] signed there's nothing for you unless you can prove you were coerced, which, I couldn't prove until six, seven months down the line. And by then it was too late. ”

    Birth mother participant

  • I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm crying. It's just, I've never...I really appreciate the support from you guys, cause you don't know me from anywhere. I don't know you, but it's a lot...so much. Someone who actually understands what I'm going through. This whole adoption thing...it’s not like you run into people who want to do it and you could talk to them about it. I'm so grateful that my OBGYN brought me here [RJiA research study] because it's a lot. It's a lot, but thank you, thank you so much.

    Pregnant participant

  • Accurate, comprehensive, and trauma-informed information from a known, accessible, and reliable source who won’t judge or pressure them

  • Material support - CASH, housing, food, baby supplies, child care

  • Access to trustworthy people with lived experience

We asked pregnant people considering adoption what they need:

  • Social support to ease the overwhelm and navigate the process

  • Adoption-knowledgeable mental health support

  • Legal advocates focused on protecting their rights and needs, not those of the prospective adoptive family or adoption professionals

Based on interviews conducted between January and April 2025. Participants included people who were pregnant and considering adoption at the time of the interview and people who had considered adoption in the last five years and either relinquished a child or decided to parent.

Reducing Harm While Building the World We Want to See

In 2022-2023, RJIA pitched (unsolicited) and created a new “Considering Adoption” section for Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s (PPFA) national website, setting a new national standard for adoption information with the most recognized name in reproductive health.

Check it Out

And PPFA nominated our work for a 2024 Webby Award for excellence on the internet! 👏👏👏

So What’s Next?

A Groundbreaking Digital Hub for Information, Resources, & Peer Support

After partnering with our fiscal sponsor, Elephant Circle, in 2024, receiving a generous seed grant, and completing an in-depth research and co-design process in Spring of 2025, RJiA is now building a groundbreaking digital hub for comprehensive and trauma-informed information, options counseling, peer support, and community-based resources for pregnant people considering adoption.

RJiA envisions a world in which all people have access to true Reproductive Justice, children are not commodified in a capitalist marketplace and displaced from their communities, and all families have what they need to thrive.

Building this world begins with access to knowledge, material resources, and community care.

Together we can make this vital resource a reality!

Donate now
Learn more

Contact Us

Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!