The Most Tragic Unforeseen Consequence of the Supreme Court's Reversal of Roe

It has been three years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the right to legal abortion in the United States. While the results of that decision have been counterintuitive—abortions have actually gone up, they’ve just gotten more complicated to access legally—in many pockets of the country, there has been a return to a pre-Roe environment, with women suffering the consequences of doctors being unable to help them in medical crises and bearing pregnancies they might have otherwise forgone. In her new Wondery podcast Liberty Lost, T.J. Raphael digs into one of those particular manifestations: the return and rise of the maternity home.

Maternity homes were popular before Roe as a place where usually teen mothers went to secretly have babies that were conceived out of wedlock. These children were almost always placed for adoption without much input from the birth mother, and the trauma that resulted was often lifelong. When Raphael began to investigate maternity homes after the fall of Roe, she was shocked to realize that not only had they not gone away, they were making a comeback.

Liberty Lost is a deeply personal story that centers on one couple’s devastating experience with a maternity home on the Liberty University campus—and the complicated ways in which the women who often end up in these homes are coerced into placing their children for adoption, even when they deeply want to parent. I spoke with Raphael about how she uncovered this story, what she learned about reproductive justice in her reporting, and where things might be going next. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.



https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/06/abortion-news-adoption-supreme-court-dobbs-anniversary.html