The multi-billion-dollar adoption industry is rife with misinformation, disinformation, and the exploitation and coercion of pregnant people. It is largely anti-abortion and religiously-affiliated, and it depends on structural inequities to exist. It commodifies the children of marginalized people and transfers them to mostly white, upper/middle-class families, erasing kinship ties and having lifelong and intergenerational impact.
FACT: Most pregnant people considering adoption want to parent their child, but lack the financial resources to do so.*
Meanwhile, adoption agencies, attorneys, marketers, and “matchmaking services” spend up to $10,000 per day on internet ads to find vulnerable and marginalized pregnant people.
Adoption is a multi-billion dollar industrial complex that coercively separates marginalized families in service of an outsized market demand for adoptable babies, and as an endgame “solution” for children forcibly removed from their families by the family policing system (so called “child welfare”), the prison industrial complex, and the immigration system.
RJiA Information & Resource Hub
The Problem
In our ever-tightening economic, reproductive, and carceral landscapes, where more people are being forced to carry pregnancies to term, struggling to make ends meet, and being punished instead of supported, the anti-abortion movement and right-wing, evangelical lawmakers are funneling millions of federal, state, and private dollars into promoting and expanding crisis pregnancy centers, baby boxes, religious maternity homes, and predatory adoption campaigns and agencies.
Currently, there does not exist a reliable and accessible source for accurate, comprehensive, and trauma-informed adoption information and support that centers the needs of pregnant people considering adoption, and which does not have a moral or financial investment in their reproductive decisions.
Our Contribution
After successfully pitching and creating a new “Considering Adoption” section on Planned Parenthood’s national website, partnering with our fiscal sponsor, Elephant Circle, and completing a 6-month research and co-design process, RJiA is now developing a groundbreaking online information and resource hub for pregnant people considering adoption.
Guided by Reproductive Justice values and abolitionist harm reduction strategies, our work centers directly impacted people while prioritizing bodily autonomy, self-determination, and community care
RJiA’s innovative platform & programs will include:
📱 comprehensive, trauma-informed information designed for accessibility and crisis
👥 adoption-knowledgeable options counseling and peer support hotline
🍼 searchable database of vetted national, state, and local resources
🗣️ multi-media library of lived experience
🤰🏽 anonymous user forum moderated for safety & security
📆 virtual accompaniment to appointments with potentially coercive actors
🤝🏼 capacity building trainings and support for values-aligned workers including birth workers, healthcare professionals, and legal advocates
📣 healing justice and leadership development program for first/birth parents
Can you help us make this vital and necessary resource a reality?
How You Can Help
Set up a tax-deductible, reoccurring or one-time donation today.
Your generosity will go directly to ensuring pregnant people have access to the information and resources they need to make informed, consensual, and supported decisions about their futures and families.
To date we have raised over $70,000!
These funds have been used to compensate directly impacted people who:
Organized, lead, or participated in our research & co-design process
Developed comprehensive informational content
Vetted resources for our database
Performed project management & admin duties
Raised funding and built ongoing donor relationships
Did community outreach, engagement, & communications
Presented our work at conferences
Received mutual aid
Are currently designing our prototype
In addition, we’ve been able to purchase software and cover fees for our fiscal sponsor, Elephant Circle, whose valuable support we are deeply grateful for.
We need an additional $61,000 to launch!
Your donation will pay for:
Content & resource development: $15K
Fundraising & development: $15K
Project Management & Admin: $15K
Tech/Software: $3K
Outreach & comms: $8K
Contingency: $5K
Every amount is impactful!
Other Ways to Support
Make Connections!
Have connections to possible donors, but aren’t sure how to approach them?
Know of funding opportunities that might be a good fit for us?
Want to host a fundraising event for RJiA?
Become a matching donor?
Let us know!
Get Involved!
Want to be part of bringing this project to life?
We always have volunteer opportunities (and sometimes paid ones), especially for people directly impacted by systems of family separation.
Reach out and let us know you’re interested!