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Ep. 251 – Liberty Lost: The Catastrophic Cost of Compulsory Adoption w/ Journalist TJ Raphael
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This week we’re joined by award-winning investigative journalist, TJ Raphael! We came across TJ’s work when we discovered her podcast series Liberty Lost which is the culmination of a two year investigation into a maternity home owned and operated by our alma mater, Liberty University. The Liberty Godparent Home is advertised as a ministry of compassion whose mission is to offer “a better choice” for pregnant young women and girls who might otherwise opt for an abortion. However, former residents describe the home as more of a nine month isolation pod where these vulnerable women are put under enormous pressure to give up their babies for adoption to “God-fearing Christian families” in exchange for basic healthcare and the promise of a clean slate/fresh start with a scholarship to Liberty University. The Liberty Godparent Home profits immensely from both donations and adoption fees while leaving behind hundreds of broken women struggling to cope with the immense guilt, shame, and despair of losing their child. Liberty Lost is a truly impactful series that we can’t recommend enough! Stream the full show today, follow TJ on Instagram (@tjraphs), and go to www.tjraphael.comfor more information about her many other projects!
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Transcript
Supporting Women: Challenges and Resources
00:00:00
Speaker
we should support, you know, single women as much as we can and pregnant women as much as we can. And if, you you know, people who are in the, you know, pro-life movement, um you know, was on TikTok ah this morning and there's this woman calling churches right now asking if she can get a bottle of baby formula because SNAP benefits are cut out.
00:00:21
Speaker
It's, you know, a sociological experiment that she's doing. She doesn't actually have a baby, but um of the 40 churches that she's called, only like five had said yes. um And so it's like, you know, if we want to support life, if we want to support women who have children, we need to actually do that instead of, you know, just having talking points around it.
00:00:43
Speaker
But if, okay. But in fairness, If you give that single mom baby formula, then like she's never going to come to grips with the fact that it's wrong to be poor.
00:00:58
Speaker
yeah It's a real tug of, you know, push and pull all this stuff.
Introduction to TJ Raphael and Liberty Lost
00:01:22
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. And today we are taking a break from our normal ah ah normal format of just making fun of things we hate and ah taking a little bit more of a serious tone with TJ Raphael, the ah creator, producer um of the ah Liberty Lost podcast.
00:01:47
Speaker
TJ, how are you? Hi, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I, um, my sister had, um, had texted me several months ago about the podcast.
00:01:59
Speaker
Um, because I, as we talked about before we got in, uh, when I first reached out, I, me and Casey met while we were at Liberty university. So anytime, anything Liberty happens with anybody I know, it's like, everyone's like, we had a text Sam about this. So, um, I, I was super excited to listen. Um, and it, I, it that is,
00:02:22
Speaker
As soon as I started, I think I listened to like, ah I think there were five episodes out at the time and I just, I had moved. So I just, I went through all five um in one sitting and my original, I'm not usually like that. My original thought was like, eh, I'll get through this over some, some time.
00:02:39
Speaker
um But yeah, it it pulled me right in ah the narrative direction of it. the The way it was all pieced together, I thought was so fantastic. So yeah, I'm curious, though, about you a little bit before we get into that. um I think being a journalist is probably the coolest job in the world. And I ah like the investigative journalism part. And I always ah it feels like being like a like a like an agent, but like cooler because you're not a cop. So anyway, I'm just curious it to your background and your um your entry into journalism as a field.
TJ Raphael's Path in Journalism
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i actually wanted to be a journalist since I was in the fourth grade. um Back in elementary school, we had to do a project called Me, Myself, and I. And the last page of that little book that we had to do was, you know what do you want to be when you grow up? And my mom still has it.
00:03:36
Speaker
And that last page says, I want to be a broadcast journalist. And so... That's crazy. Yeah, so i I kind of had the bug from... a very young age. And ah thankfully, my parents, you know, when I was heading off to college, they supported me in that. ah But they said, like, you actually have to do it. Like, you can't just like, say you want to be a journalist and then like, go be a waitress, like, or whatever. No shade to waitresses. um i have worked in restaurants before. But yeah, so I, you know, when I got to college, I, you know, studied really hard, but I did several internships in school. And
00:04:14
Speaker
that gave me the bug even more. I um did a fellowship in the New York State Capitol in Albany and I covered the legislature. you know As a 20 year old, I interviewed Andrew Cuomo. Oh, cool.
00:04:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah, Chuck Schumer. like um I was covering the legislature, the state's high court. um And then I went to the Village Voice in New York City, did an internship there with an investigative journalist.
00:04:41
Speaker
um And then I did a fellowship at the New York Daily News. So I was running around the city, you know, doing everything from, you know, going outside the scene of a fire to questioning Madonna on the red carpet.
00:04:52
Speaker
And um yeah, that' yeah it was it was really fun. And then after i ah graduated, I got a job at a tiny
Transition to Audio Journalism
00:05:01
Speaker
trade magazine. This was around 2010. And, you know, the recession was in full swing. And i was really happy to get any job reporting professionally, but for two years I covered ah the media business as a business journalist. And then thankfully in 2013, I broke into audio. I started at WNYC, which is ah the public radio station in New York. It's the largest public radio station in America.
00:05:26
Speaker
And I was a producer on ah their national show, The Takeaway. And I was there for five years and then I sold out and went into corporate podcasting, left public radio um because I needed to ah not be poor anymore, ah support your local public radio station. The money actually does ah help support the people that work there.
00:05:47
Speaker
um And yeah, so then I went to Slate Magazine um and I, you know, was working across all of their shows. I was a senior producer for the whole network and, and you know was working on everything from Slow Burn to you know their chat shows, music history podcast.
00:06:02
Speaker
um And then I went to Sony's global podcast division. And um there I started hosting and I hosted four shows or excuse me, three shows at Sony.
00:06:14
Speaker
um And ah then in the summer of 2023, Sony announced that it was closing down its in-house division of narrative journalism podcasts.
00:06:26
Speaker
and let all of us go. um whoa i had, you know, one of the shows that I made was chosen by Apple is one of the most loved shows of the year and, you know, was hugely successful, but you know, I guess that's capitalism, right? And so they shut down and I was sitting here in this room that I'm now.
Starting Liberty Lost Podcast
00:06:46
Speaker
And I had recently connected with Abby Johnson, who became the main subject of Liberty Lost. And I started just interviewing her remotely from where I'm sitting right now. And so that's kind of how ah Liberty alert Loss first started. I was just an independent journalist and and started to make it happen. So, yeah.
00:07:04
Speaker
I think that answers my question. So would you say, I mean, is it a fair statement to say your love of journalism precedes your hatred of good Christian families.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i definitely, i don't think I would say I hate good Christian families. But people might I definitely, um yeah, have always loved, I've always loved writing. I've always loved storytelling. um And, you know, my father is a ah military veteran. And I actually do come from a family of investigators too. My grandfather was a homicide detective. My two uncles were in the and NYPD.
00:07:48
Speaker
And ah you know i think both my parents really instilled in me this um sense of social justice justice and truth seeking. And I'm very privileged and lucky enough to be able to turn that into a career. And I i also say, I'm a nosy girl from Long Island. So you know talking to people and
Finding Voices from the Godparent Home
00:08:06
Speaker
telling other people about it is in my DNA. i I feel like the wildest thing about that, the line of work to me, like, is, I mean, I is how,
00:08:16
Speaker
especially and in in as independent is like to to go through that interview process that investigative part, like it's, I think it just seems like really daunting. And I think when like people think about that, that line of work in general, or I'm listening to this podcast, or we've had other journalists on who have done other long, like long form podcasts, like, like Liberty Lost. It's like,
00:08:42
Speaker
the amount of people that are, you have to reach out to like, cause obviously you, you interview Abby, right. And then that kind of gets you your brain going, and you're like, okay where can I take this? What am I going to do? And then i mean, every episode you're like, we had to reach, we reached out to this person, but we didn't get an answer back and this person, but they, they did send in a statement, but there's so many like doing your due diligence to like reach out to everybody involved to get like the most well-rounded perspective on it. I think it's like,
00:09:09
Speaker
It yeah that just feels and insane to me to like have to pull on all of those threads. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a long process. um You know, from the time I started interviewing Abby to when the series was actually released, it was a little over two years. Okay. um so it did take a very long time. um But yeah, it really began with her and just talking with her. And as I started to research the history of The Godparent Home and found out that it had been opened in 1982,
00:09:41
Speaker
And Abby, you know, she was there in 2008. I mean, I realized that there must be more women like her out there. And so I set out ah to find them. And it was really a huge, huge challenge to to find them um because, you know, most people who, um you know, felt pressured or, of course, to place their children for adoption.
00:10:04
Speaker
They don't you know like to share it very often on social media. It's one of the most painful and traumatic things that has happened to them. yeah um Or if they didn't, if they, you know someone like Tony Popham, who we also interview in the series, she wound up keeping her daughter and parenting her child.
00:10:20
Speaker
um It still was an incredibly traumatic experience for her. And so a lot of people are not like, hey, here's the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to me that I'm still dealing with. Let me like post about it. So it was really, really challenging to find additional women who had had this experience. But I was lucky enough to yeah connect with five women who had been pregnant and residents at the Godparent Home, as well as two former staffers and a ah CPS investigator.
00:10:47
Speaker
um And since the show has aired, I've heard from literally just this week on Monday, i got an email from woman who said she was sent there in 1993 at the age of 14. And she's like, are you still doing this? I'd like to tell my story.
00:11:01
Speaker
um I've heard from former staffers who um have listened to the podcast and feel ready to speak, as well as ah former Liberty students. So um I think I've just kind of scratched the tip of the iceberg in some ways. um But yeah, it was it definitely um a labor of love. And I mean, talking to Abby, my my heart really broke for her. And I felt and you know lucky and privileged that she chose me to tell her story.
00:11:28
Speaker
um And it was important to me to keep pulling on that thread because I knew there must be more of her out there. How did she get connected with you?
Exploring the Godparent Home's History
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I after versus Wade was overturned, i was interested in doing something around abortion in the United States.
00:11:49
Speaker
um But instead of, you you know, um doing simply, you know, a story of what's going on right now. I started to think about the pre-Roe era um and what that time looked like in our country.
00:12:05
Speaker
And I think a lot of people, when they think about the pre-Roe era, they think about dangerous back alley abortions. And that was definitely part of the story, but it was just one part of the pre-Roe era.
00:12:17
Speaker
It was also a time of maternity homes and forced birth and coerced adoption. and And so i connected with an adoptee rights activist named Katie Burns.
00:12:29
Speaker
um She advocates for adopted people and birth parents. um And I asked her to put up a post for me on social media because her followers, you know, she doesn't have a huge following. I think she had maybe like 2000 followers, but all of those people have been affected in some way.
00:12:46
Speaker
And so I asked her to throw up a post for me saying, you know, if you went through a maternity home, reach out to TJ Raphael. And I expected to hear from mainly older women, you know, baby boomers in their 60s and 70s.
00:12:58
Speaker
And I did get a lot of emails from them. But I also got an email from Abby and when she reached out to me, she was only 31. You know I'm two years older than her. So I was 33 at the time. And I was like, wait, this happened in 2008, like the same year Beyonce and Jay got married. This is not a pre-Rose story. This is modern. And this is and then when I Googled the Godparent home and saw that it was still open,
00:13:25
Speaker
I was and I was kind of blown away. And then as she started to tell me about this place and she's like, yeah, it was started by Jerry Falwell. I mean, alarm bells started to go off. And so that's kind of how I connected with Abby and how things started to take shape.
00:13:40
Speaker
It's yeah, there was originally two godparent homes, one for whites and one's for blacks. That was... Is that true? I'm sure that's how it... It's a reasonable assumption to make.
00:13:53
Speaker
The thing that I was kind of struck by, it my wife and I listened to it together and... You know, I both of us grew up evangelical and very conservative. Both of us went to right to life marches and all of that kind of stuff. And eight I was I guess I've never thought about it until listening to this show, how how dishonest the narrative is around adoption, like the the PR pack that everybody gets pitched all the time is like, you know, adoption is for women who are
00:14:27
Speaker
you know, considering abortion and they don't want to have a child. And this is like the humane way to do it. But like, i feel like and maybe there was other people that you talked to during the thing, but I don't, I don't think single person that was featured in the show was considering abortion. It was all people who were just either by forced by outside influence or circumstance to give up their child.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, basically, ah pretty much every single woman that I talked to who was a resident there, you know, by the time they arrived at the Liberty Godparent Home had decided they did not want an abortion. I think the person who came closest to considering abortion was Zoe Shaw. She actually went to a clinic, but, you know, at the last minute, she ran out and she's like, I don't want to do this. um So yeah, that this idea that the
Adoption Narratives and Misconceptions
00:15:18
Speaker
Godparent Home was saving all these babies from abortion. I mean, according to my research, that's just categorically untrue.
00:15:26
Speaker
um A lot of, most of the women who went there were raised in evangelical households and were taught, um you know, and believed that abortion was murder, that it was, you know, against God's will. And and so it wasn't something appealed to them or that they considered. I mean, Tony Popham, ah one of our subjects, you know, she got pregnant 13 and she was like, you know, her parents, you know, were pushing her to, and other, you know, adults in her life, her aunt were pushing her to have an abortion because she was so young. And
00:16:00
Speaker
she put her feet down and said, no I do not want to do this. So yeah, I mean, it's a nice ah shiny bow to put on it and it's an effective fundraising tool. Jerry Falwell, you know, in the course of my research, I found it's amazing how much do they have online at Liberty University's archives. um You know, they have catalogs so much and mailers that they would send out on Mother's day um to, you know, prospective donors saying,
00:16:28
Speaker
You know, it's Mother's Day, help save a baby from abortion by donating to the Liberty Godparent Home. We're saving babies from abortion. um When in reality, ah yeah, I couldn't find a single woman who, when the time she went into the Godparent Home, she actually was wanting an abortion and they convinced her not to have one.
00:16:47
Speaker
That's incredible. um One of the things that stuck out to me, too, is, you know, the conversations around like the crisis pregnancy centers and things like that. I like Casey um grew up evangelical, went to all sorts of ah anything to protest abortion. um You know, i we were at Liberty in 2008.
00:17:06
Speaker
It's like weird and to think of like, and that's one the things that really stuck out to me too, is like I was doing, I worked for Liberty's fulfillment offices and I would do deliveries somewhat regularly to the godparent home and go inside to drop. It's like, i don't know for all I, like I gave you, I kind of even forgot about that in my life. Like I, and then listening to it, it like kind of like brought me back to like their little outdated lobby hangout area and just like walking by these,
00:17:36
Speaker
women and there's a stigma, you know, I'm, I'm 20, 21, something like probably. Yeah. I don't even, but like, and you're like, Oh, these poor ladies. Oh, like you have it in your brain coming from that world that like, there's this, there's a kind of a shroud around it that it,
00:17:56
Speaker
gives you this belief that like oh it's good that they picked this instead like i don't know it was really it's a it's a sad it was a sad environment when i was around it and ah part of that was just the the the stigma that you get from being indoctrinated with this idea of like how awful it is to get pregnant out of like at a young age or out of wedlock or whatever but um But going like with the anyway, back like the crisis pregnancy center thing, like the narrative, i i would we my family would like go to these little conferences where they talk about like what you want to do is like they work technically clinics. They did receive funding um like and a medical clinic would because they provide medical services, just not abortions. But they would like there was a lot of talk about like getting women to...
00:18:43
Speaker
ah like hold off on considering abortion just long enough to get them that ultrasound because then you can like basically emotionally manipulate them into being like here's here's a person now and now you'll like essentially be a murderer if you if you make any other choice and um the the crisis pregnancy center is something that i find like so emotionally manipulative and and harmful Yeah, I mean, i um think that crisis pregnancy centers, you know, work in tandem nowadays with maternity homes.
Coercive Adoption Pipeline
00:19:16
Speaker
um You know, one third of maternity homes in the United States have ties to Heartbeat International, which is the world's largest anti-abortion organization and also has affiliates.
00:19:28
Speaker
many affiliates that are crisis pregnancy centers. And so I really you know see maternity homes, um depending on who's running them and the viewpoints that they have, um as being part of a pipeline where you know first stop crisis pregnancy center, then maybe second stop maternity home, and then finally you know um religiously affiliated adoption agency.
00:19:51
Speaker
um You know, ah in theory, maternity homes are great. I mean, you know, who goes to a maternity home? They're a pregnant woman who does not have housing. ah You know, maybe their partner is out of the picture. Maybe it's a domestic violence situation.
00:20:06
Speaker
Their family doesn't support them. um You know, they're working a low income job. They don't get parental leave. They don't know how they're going to make it work and they need safe harbor. um And so I think we need more places.
00:20:18
Speaker
safe places for pregnant women in crisis to go to. i think the problem that I see is when those um facilities have a goal and a viewpoint that single motherhood is bad, that um you know ah baby should be raised in the context only in the context of a you know Christian heterosexual marriage, that then can create pressure, especially if you're living at that place and you're hearing that message day in and day out,
00:20:48
Speaker
that can create pressure for women to permanently separate from their children. um You know, something we didn't get to cover in the podcast was, you know, I've been looking at other maternity homes. There's this one maternity home in Utah called Lamb of God matureity Maternity Home, um and it's affiliate of Heartbeat International.
00:21:06
Speaker
And they opened only two years ago, and they're already reporting a 45 percent adoption rate among the residents. And, you know, about nationally, 1% of women who get pregnant will place their children for adoption. So that represents a 4,500% increase from the national average.
00:21:22
Speaker
That's wild. And it makes me wonder what's driving that. um So yeah, and and I mean, these places are also wildly unregulated on top of that. Yeah, you have to imagine some intense level of coercion is going on.
00:21:37
Speaker
um I think another thing that like with the Liberty Godparent home, like it's a very, it's, so it's very circular in the way that they like kind of move people in and out of it in the way that like you, if you go to Liberty University and you get pregnant,
00:21:57
Speaker
you that's grounds for expulsion unless you decide to go to the Liberty God parent home, then you can stay in the school. Um, and then of course they're going to try to get you to give your child up for adoption. And I just like, i think what, ah what stuck out to me throughout all of this is like the significant financial component to things like the God parent home or these maternity homes where,
00:22:25
Speaker
um when you think of the money that kind of like funnels into them in general, you think of like, you know, you're selling babies, right? It's not like you're just giving these, it's not this like thing of you're like, we're giving this child up to help this family that can't have a kid. Like it's not like a not for profit system.
00:22:44
Speaker
Um, and ah soon like once you like kind of roll up that much money, um and into something as serious as as adoption it feels like it just gets disgusting incredibly fast yeah i mean um family life services which is the adoption agency connected to the liberty godparent home you know according to their website adoption fees start at around forty thousand dollars um that's a starting fee obviously it can go up from there um but i think that
00:23:19
Speaker
um I also, when I look at specifically the Liberty Godparent Home, it's not just the adoption fees that um enables you know money to change hands. It's also the incredible amount of fundraising that Thomas Road Baptist Church and and you know Jerry Falwell when he was alive, incredible amount of fundraising.
00:23:38
Speaker
incredible amount of money that they were raising on the backs of these pregnant girls. And, you know, this is something we didn't get to cover in the podcast, but, you know, Jerry Falwell, all the checks would be made out to the old time gospel hour, his show, they were not being made out to the Liberty Godparent home.
00:23:56
Speaker
So when people were donating their money, it was just going back into the old time gospel hour, into his you know show. um And, you know, residents like Abby, you know, she told me that the home did not provide her with any maternity clothing. Her parents had to send her money in order to buy maternity clothing.
00:24:13
Speaker
um Her parents had to send her money to get things like, you know, shampoo and conditioner and toiletries. um You know, the home really was pocketing all of these donations, but it doesn't seem to me that that money was being used to go back to actually help the pregnant women in the building.
00:24:32
Speaker
Or, yeah, like someone like Abby who was like, I want to do this. I don't know how i'm going to do it. You know, they weren't helping her, you know. Here's some money to get you know a security deposit or an apartment so that you can live alone. Or like you know here are some you know resources that we can connect you with. And so, yeah, it seems like the Godparent Home was just a fundraising tool for Jerry Falwell and the church.
00:24:56
Speaker
Okay, but I feel like you're not really taking into account, though, the the level of funding it takes to to run a place like Liberty, right? Which, have you been to the campus?
00:25:08
Speaker
Yes. o Okay. So you're saying we're building six flags under God and over there, you know? How are we going to have a, ah ah you know, like a cross campus tilt a world to take you to the dining hall?
00:25:24
Speaker
Right. and That's what I kept wondering too, is like, i get, and I guess it's donations and stuff, but like the financial component, I feel like that was part of what I was unclear on too.
00:25:37
Speaker
um So, so these fees and stuff like that, are they being, so they're being paid to the organization? This isn't like, ah I'm always been fuzzy on, and I have a lot of adoption in my family, but you know, like some of my adopted siblings are from Korea.
00:25:56
Speaker
And so there, I mean, i I feel like it's a little more detached and there's a, it's a clearer, the The financial aspect of it's a little clearer, but here it's like, I always wondered, my my nephew's adopted.
00:26:09
Speaker
i know it was a very expensive process. And yeah, so this is just this is just being funneled into the organization, all these fees and
Financial Motivations in Adoption
00:26:18
Speaker
stuff. It's not like there's some government component where you have to register this and that and the other, and it costs whatever. No, yeah, the fees are paid directly to Family Life Services Adoption Agency. And according to the most recent publicly available tax filings of the Liberty Godparent Foundation, um yeah, it's called the Liberty Godparent Foundation. And underneath that umbrella group is Liberty Godparent Home and the Adoption Agency Family Life Services.
00:26:47
Speaker
And the board of directors of the Liberty Godparent Foundation are the same people who run Liberty University. ah you know, the Falwells, ah Jonathan Falwell, Jerry Falwell Jr. when before the scandal, um their mother, um you know, the the provost of the college.
00:27:06
Speaker
um So yeah, the money that if you were to adopt a child is being paid to the adoption agency, which is Liberty Godparent Foundation. and And yeah, so those fees are not going to the state.
00:27:18
Speaker
Those fees also don't go to ah the women who placed their children for adoption. um you know the scholarships were being given to them, but it was contingent. um you know it it was They never put it in writing, but according to former staffers that I spoke with,
00:27:36
Speaker
um there was internal discussion about how it was looking like it was exchanging a baby for scholarship because yes um some of the girls, I know of one resident, um you know, she was unwilling to to go on the record ah when we were recording the podcast.
00:27:54
Speaker
um But she said that um you know she wanted to keep her her child um and also get the scholarship. And they said that in order for her to get the scholarship, she would have to keep her child with her. Her mother had said, okay, honey, you go to school. i'll like you know While you're away for four years, I'll raise my grandson, you know my your son.
00:28:19
Speaker
And for some reason, the godparent home was said, no she can't get the scholarship. She'll be required to keep the child with her. And so that just made made housing, which it was included in the scholarship, that took that off the table.
00:28:32
Speaker
And so she would have had to find an apartment on her own, you know find childcare, find you know a way to get to campus um and all those things, which her family did not have money for that. So in that way, it made keeping her child and getting the scholarship impossible. Was it technically possible?
00:28:49
Speaker
Yes, but they introduced so many barriers that it just became impractical. And so, yeah, in that way, you know, the scholarship, um according to this former staffer that I spoke to she said, quote, you know, it was a leverage point.
00:29:05
Speaker
It's the United States seems particularly unique in the way that adoption functions as a business. And it might just be the way that I'm familiar, just because, you know, I live here. But like I know in other I know like.
00:29:19
Speaker
China, Korea, like there, there were, there was an adoption boom. Someone um that I know I'll be vague for this just cause I don't, I've been asked if I could share this information. um But someone I, someone I know is ah was adopted from a country where it to a,
00:29:40
Speaker
an American home um from a country where there was a time where there was like baby theft going on because there was so much money in um in adopting two American families.
00:29:53
Speaker
And so she had been kind of on this quest to like find out who her actual birth parents were just because she was started to wonder if she was one of those babies who was stolen at birth for the sake of um selling it to an American home. And I think what's the lack of oversight that you've mentioned, there's no real government involvement in this is like,
00:30:17
Speaker
is really bizarre. Like it's, it's bizarre that like, it's like a, it feels like there's like a, just a form of trafficking that you can just kind of turn like a blind eye to and because you're you're doing it for the sake of like giving a kid who doesn't have a home to someone who wants to provide for it. And I also want to be clear that it's, it's, there are ah so many people who just want to adopt a kid or like for whatever reasons are, they're not, they're not usually bad reasons. So like, I don't want to throw all the people who want to like do something good and help a baby or child who doesn't have a home.
00:30:56
Speaker
I don't want to throw them under the bus with, you know, the system that critiques. I agree. you know i don't think um you know people who adopt children are are bad. I think they want to help children. i think they want to have a family. um you know When we look at other countries, um places like Germany, for example, or Australia, all adoptions are managed through the state. So no money changes hands at all. you know There are no private adoption agencies that set their own fees um that then can maybe profit off of those fees.
00:31:34
Speaker
um And in other countries, there's a prioritization when it comes to adoption of trying to first, you know, place the child with, um you know, ah kin, you know, an aunt or a cousin or something like that, you know, sort of the last resort is thought of as placing a child with, you know,
00:31:55
Speaker
strangers to, but you know, raise that child. But in those countries as well, they have things like universal healthcare and access to childcare and all of these other things. So adoption is way less common. And, you know, as part of my research and in the bonus episode, episode seven of Liberty Lost, we interviewed ah Gretchen Cishin, who is a sociologist at the University of California, San Francisco.
00:32:19
Speaker
um and she's done, she's probably the foremost adoption researcher in the United States. And And, you know, her research has found that, you know, at least today in the United States, you know, it might have been different um decades ago, but the number one driving factor for women who place infants, and this is specifically infants,
Influence of Financial Instability on Choices
00:32:40
Speaker
right? This is not, you know, adopting a child through foster care, that child has been been removed because it has been unsafe for them.
00:32:47
Speaker
This is women who are pregnant that might place their infants for adoption. um The number one factor comes down to money. um They just feel like they don't have financial resources to raise that child and they lack support. And actually last month, a couple weeks ago, I went to a conference of birth mothers in Atlanta. I'm reporting this story for NPR. It'll be out um in the next two weeks, I think.
00:33:12
Speaker
um And I was talking to birth moms there and I met with one and she is 31. Um, and she found out that she was pregnant. Her boyfriend and her had recently broken up, you know, um when she told her ex boyfriend, he's like, I don't want anything to do with it.
00:33:29
Speaker
She didn't want an abortion. um you know, her family said she, they would not support her. She tried to like figure it out, but she's like, I was kind of just struggling in all of the classic millennial ways. Like my rent was already too high.
00:33:41
Speaker
was having to move out. Um, I didn't know how I was going to be able to do this. And so she decided, you know, maybe I should do adoption. And, ah you know, now her son has been adopted for the last year and she describes a grief and pain that is overwhelming. um And she's kind of just beginning this journey.
00:34:01
Speaker
And so, um you know Gretchen's research finds that like if you were to provide women with you know support, if they needed you know access to housing, if they needed access to childcare, if they you know needed small amounts of money, maybe $1,000 $2,000 to get on their feet, would they still choose adoption?
00:34:23
Speaker
And the overwhelming majority is no. And so in that way, um you know adoption... can sometimes be a result of poverty and not really an act of choice that somebody actually wants to be making.
00:34:36
Speaker
Maybe some of that 250 million in federal funding, which to the crisis pregnancy centers and maternity homes would, um, had, would had, could it be funneled towards those kinds of supports would, um, make such an impact. And I mean, you know, it's a lot of money in that.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Something that Gretchen had said in my interview with her, which I found to be interesting is, you know, I asked her like, well, what's the solution? And she's like, you know, family preservation solutions, you know, don't just benefit, you know, vulnerable pregnant women who might be, you know, feeling like they have no option but to to separate from their children.
00:35:16
Speaker
will kind of benefit all of us. And those are things like, again, like universal healthcare, access to childcare, access to affordable housing, access to, um you know, food assistance if you need it. and And, you know, as we were talking right now during the government shutdown, when, you know, SNAP benefits are being cut and and Medicaid, which covers 40% of births in the United States is is being cut. And and so, yeah,
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the solutions for for, you know, women who might be placing their children for adoption out of poverty are the same things that many people in the United States generally could benefit
Critiquing Adoption Narratives
00:35:52
Speaker
from. Right.
00:35:53
Speaker
I am having a hard time squaring this, though, with ah some Fox News hit pieces on people having more children just to get extra food stamps.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah. One of these things doesn't add up. Yeah. That is but that is something I, you know, in those circles growing up, you hear like there are people who have more kids just because they get, you know, low income housing and more food stamps. and I'm quoting them. I know we call them staff benefits, but um it's a the The narrative around.
00:36:29
Speaker
yeah No, it's not. I work in a, um in a district with a low income district and um I work in a school and I can, it's, I can assure you um that is not the the daily experience of people. But um I think another thing around the conversation of adoption um that I think is interesting is like, uh,
00:36:55
Speaker
in the way that like the Liberty Godparent home does it is like it saying that you'll only adopt to like, uh, like a heterosexual Christian couple, like even bringing ah anything else aside, like just bringing religious identity into the mix as a qualifier feels like that. It just like, if,
00:37:22
Speaker
If I know nothing about this and you asked me like a man on the street interview, like asked around, do you think, it would it be illegal to deny an adoption of somebody based on religious identity?
00:37:34
Speaker
I feel like most people would be like, yeah, of course that sounds ridiculous, but they just, it's it's not, it doesn't come up. It's not a component. There's no law against that. um I find that crazy. I don't, I don't know.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i think, you know, especially ah in the last few years, we've been seeing the rise of this, you know, religious freedom conversation happening. um And so, yeah, in the actual document, ah Project 2025 agenda, I mean, in that it explicitly states that faith-based adoption agencies should get preferential funding and things like that. And so, yeah, it's not um illegal. and And as it relates to family life services, the adoption agency affiliated with the Liberty Godparent home.
00:38:21
Speaker
Yeah. i mean, you can go on their website and right now and look at their application materials. There are question questionnaires about like, describe your salvation experience. Like how is the Holy spirit active in your life? And people write, know,
00:38:34
Speaker
you know, really detailed, long, you know, essay-like responses to those questions, um because the mission of, you know, the Liberty Godparent Home and Family Life Services is to, you know, place children in Christian households. And I mean, I've reviewed hours of footage of Jerry Falwell talking and, um you know, in his sermons and things like that. And he explicitly says, you know, this is a way to you know, get a new generation of quote, Christian soldiers. And he says, you know, we're educating them at Liberty, but we can kind of get them at birth through adoption. And so i think part of the mission of the God parent home, it's not just to get babies away from, you know, sinful single mothers um who had sex outside of marriage. It's also to make sure they're creating new Christians. That's just what it appears to be from my point of view. Yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
I'm curious, too, like we've talked about a little bit. ah The motives of some of the people are are you know what I found myself thinking about the most in ways.
00:39:42
Speaker
um I think if there's a clear villain in the and the whole thing, it's probably Abby's dad. um just a petty, mean-spirited guy. And it sounds like he's coping with it in some way or another.
00:39:56
Speaker
ah did feel like both of his parents' writings after the fact kind of like still absolved them of a lot of the the the blame for things. But that's that's a that's their thing.
00:40:10
Speaker
What we've talked about a lot on this show too is is um the preoccupation with punishment in that community. And I think like there's all there's there's a lot of different motivating factors when you look at like the the subjects that you talk to in this. But I couldn't help but feeling that like in the case Abby's parents and specifically her dad, a large portion of what we were dealing with is like you can't have what you want because you did the bad thing. So you have to be punished.
00:40:41
Speaker
And and I'm being strong by not giving into your tears and stuff and telling you you can keep this baby. And even after the fact, it wasn't enough. I mean, he still treated her like a subhuman, you know, and I don't know. Did you did you did you feel that from a lot of the people that you talk to?
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah, i I think that, you know, Abby's father and and her mother, I would say as well, you know, they were deeply ashamed of her. They were ashamed of what their community would think. ah You know, we didn't get the soundbite in the show, but...
00:41:18
Speaker
And going back, I'm like, I wish we did because Abby's mother, you know, Abby was being homeschooled and she was like, why can't I just stay here? Like we do all of my school at home. But she was actually taking one class at like a Christian school nearby. It was a math class.
00:41:31
Speaker
And Abby's mom told her, you know, the boys in your class, the kids there don't deserve to watch your sin growing before everyone. And like, you can't stay in the house 24 seven, we have to walk around town and people will see you. And so shame um was a huge motivating factor for Abby's parents.
00:41:51
Speaker
And I think it was really for all of the resident, for most of the residents who wound up at the godparent home, you know, Zoe Shaw and Tony Popham, their parents were ashamed of their teenage pregnancy and wanted to hide that.
00:42:08
Speaker
um The same goes for Sarah She had gotten pregnant as the result of a sexual assault, and she was already and adult, technically. She was 18, and she had left her college, her Christian college in Mississippi, to go home for winter break, and her mom said instead of staying here at our house, maybe it would be better for you to go to the god parrot home.
Shame and Coercion in Maternity Homes
00:42:33
Speaker
And I don't think she explicitly said like, we're ashamed of you. But um she also said, we don't want people talking around town about you.
00:42:42
Speaker
um So yeah, I think shame was a huge motivating factor for both the parrots um I think it was a tool yeah used by the godparent home. Sarah, pe who I just mentioned, she actually went on to work there afterwards. And she said to me, quote, guilt and shame were tools of the trade.
00:43:03
Speaker
um You know, the girls were shamed for the sin of premarital sex and because they were raised in that culture, weighed extraordinarily heavily on them and um was used as, you know, ah reason a reason, motivator for them to submit and to, yeah, separate from their children, even if they didn't actually want to do that.
00:43:24
Speaker
um And that's, you know, devastating, you know, unfortunately that like this, you know, shame around premarital sex um and the religion is the driving factor for all of this trauma, really.
00:43:39
Speaker
it the juxtaposition of um we can't let them see the sin growing and every life is precious, therefore we need adoption is pretty horrifying.
00:43:53
Speaker
You know, we growing up like and the juxtapositions like that are, are very common in the evangelical world. It's, you know, there's a lot, they'll talk about grace and no, like just no shame in Christ and ah forgiveness. And like, you hear, you hear all those words and you, and but like the undertones of like the alternative messaging are really strong.
00:44:17
Speaker
And it that the The shame piece in the social component of of that world is so much stronger than the freedom that they say you find in Christ or the forgiveness that you find. And I think that's why like ah that's just why you see so many so many people like i said so I'm 37 and I growing up in that world, you just go.
00:44:43
Speaker
you look to your left and you look to your right and you're like the messaging around every aspect of it feels inconsistent and they can give you like the five points in a poem about like how they believe it's logically consistent and you're like yeah maybe it followed through in the way that you write it down like i could give it a pass i could not and obviously not with these more serious topics like give forced adoptions or whatever, but like in general, like, and then, but when you, the feeling that you get in it, in the, the, the way that you, that information, like, it's just, it's different and you know, it's different. I hear what you're saying and then I feel, but I feel differently.
00:45:25
Speaker
And I think that like that dissonance and that, that difference in feeling is like, that's just where the root of the control seems to come from because you're, no one wants to sit in that. No one wants to feel that. So like, if you follow these rules, like, and you do these things, then, then eventually that feeling will go away because you did the thing you were supposed to do, as opposed to like, there's a message that's been imparted onto you.
00:45:49
Speaker
And it's, it's now ingrained deep within your soul. And there's almost no no checking the checking the right number of boxes might not take that feeling away. That's why a lot of us are in therapy because you, you shift. It's like hell, right? You shift from this idea and, uh, yeah, technically not me either, but a lot, but we do this instead. But you you points anyways, yeah, yeah. But you shift like like people who have like that hell anxiety of like, I don't believe in this anymore, but it still impacts my life regularly.
00:46:24
Speaker
Um, And that that that's how that messaging works. And then you could get into a long conversation about whether it's intentional or just a byproduct of but bad belief systems, but it's there. And it's that, that so that, yeah, I don't know. it's That was just tangential, but it is frustrating to like hear those things. And I think that that sound clip was like, ah that you didn't, didn't make it in as like resonates real strongly with people who grew up in that world.
00:46:54
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, um, one of our sources, Sarah p um, you know, I thought she said something really insightful. Um, she talked, she's since deconstructed and um, but she was, you know, she, she told me, she's like, I couldn't have been more devoted. Like I was living this, I was raped. I became pregnant. I did not try to get an abortion.
00:47:18
Speaker
i was going to do the right thing and place my son for adoption. um And then you know she gets the scholarship to Liberty. She becomes a prayer leader on in her hall. like She is really bought in She then, you know after being a resident, starts to work at the godparent home um as a case manager.
00:47:38
Speaker
Um, but since she's deconstructed and over the last, you know, 15 years, um, you know, she's, she's like, you know, the belief system is what drives the caution.
00:47:51
Speaker
You know, you, you sign this purity pledge, you know, you shouldn't have been having sex. You know, that this was wrong. You know, this is not what God wants for you and you need to make it right because a baby shouldn't be,
00:48:02
Speaker
in a single mom household, it's not right if you need government assistance. And she said to me, you know, quote, that's how good and caring people can become instruments in coercion.
00:48:13
Speaker
yeah These people really believed what they were doing was right. um you know And it was driven by this very strict belief system around sex, around um you know who gets to you know be a parent and things like that. And and that's really sad. um you know i think that we should support you know single women as much as we can and pregnant women as much as we can. And if you you know people who are in The you know pro-life movement.
00:48:45
Speaker
I was on TikTok ah this morning and there's this woman calling churches right now asking if she can get a bottle of baby formula because SNAP benefits are cut out. It's you know a sociological experiment that she's doing. She doesn't actually have a baby. but um of the 40 churches that she's called only like five had said yes.
00:49:05
Speaker
um And so it's like, you know, if we want to support life, if we want to support women who have children, we need to actually do that instead of, you know, just having talking points around it.
00:49:17
Speaker
But if, yeah okay. But in fairness, If you give that single mom baby formula, then like she's never going to come to grips with the fact that it's wrong to be poor.
00:49:33
Speaker
yeah It's a real tug of, you know, push and pull all this stuff. hmm. We can't have people becoming dependent on churches like that either. Businesses have to function, you know? That's not what tithe money is for. They're saving up for a new sound system. It's for attorneys to cover up the allegations.
00:49:56
Speaker
I don't even know if this is a question worth asking, but just because because we're like so close to Liberty, you know, and grew up there and, you know, we went there for, I was there for three years. Sam was there all for longer.
00:50:10
Speaker
Yeah. um We always joke that like, you know, we've talked to all these people because because the from what you know, from the friends that we have that that we've talked to oh on this show, um the Godparent home is treated in much the same way, like publicly as the their conversion therapy program.
00:50:32
Speaker
like it's there, they make mention of it, they'll allude to it and like the good work that they're doing, you know, to help these, you know, men struggling with same sex attraction, all that stuff. But like, it's very not, it's not visible in a lot of ways. And we were kind of like shocked to see how many people around us were going through this like horrible program while we were there.
00:50:54
Speaker
Sam and I had a pretty good time at Liberty, but you know, we were, cis white heterosexual men and it's kind of geared towards us. We weren't having sex before we were married either. So yeah, that's that's true. I mean, we were right in that way.
00:51:09
Speaker
But i I just April and were talking last night and I'm just like, i don't hate liberty. I do like have a lot of good memories there. Why is it that every rock you look under there has something just ugly and awful under every single thing, everything that comes up about them, the more you learn a couple of details and then you look a little closer and it turns out it's just, you know, abysmally awful.
00:51:35
Speaker
And I, I don't know. Do you have any theories as to why that is, or from your time just sniffing around there? Yeah. I mean, I mean, i don't know why, yeah, whenever you turn over a stone Liberty University, you find something awful. Maybe it has to do with money.
00:51:54
Speaker
um Maybe it's cultural um in terms of, you know, whose behavior we excuse and whose we don't. um That's big. That's a real big point.
00:52:05
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, I mean, you know, like I said earlier in this conversation, i I think maternity homes are very much needed, especially as we do as, you know, cut our social safety net.
00:52:17
Speaker
Yeah. It's just the value systems when you, you know, have a certain point of view about single motherhood or, or, you know, sex outside of marriage where things get really dicey. Um, and, and so, yeah, like I would, you know, theoretically love to see the Liberty God parent home open its doors to, and help actual actually help, um, you know, pregnant single women, but when it's physically attached to an adoption agency, um, that has a, you know, business interest in remaining open and and getting clients, um, that is also where it becomes really ethically murky as well. And the irony of it especially is, um,
00:52:57
Speaker
You know, they'll it's advertised under the banner, the Christian banner of like supporting, so you know, supporting the vulnerable, um as is a lot of organizations in Christianity. It's like we do that.
00:53:12
Speaker
But, you know, like you said, you listen to hundreds of hours of Jerry Falwell sermons. And actually... ah It's crazy to me that you listen to 100 hours of his sermons and you you're still not you didn't get saved.
00:53:26
Speaker
you you Have you considered you might be a demon? Maybe the problem is you. ah gosh. yeah I was raised Catholic, so i demon. Okay, gotcha. years of catechism school. And ah you know i also, in college, I took a course called the Bible. And so I read the whole Bible. And so I think after all that, if I if i still didn't um find Jesus's light, yeah, maybe I am a demon. Yeah, well, I'll let you wrestle with that one in your own time. But no, but just like doing all this under that banner of like supporting the vulnerable is like it is just so many things just turn out to not be that it's it's the the because the main goal is always making converts. So they say um and we saw that, you know, in every little area, it's like.
00:54:24
Speaker
We're going to do this fun thing, but really the end, the every end game is like to be able to say how many people got saved. Any youth event, every like big funded anything. it was just like altar calls and then, you know, filling out a card or so you could like, they could say how many people get saved at these events when it's like,
00:54:43
Speaker
you like But it <unk> so it's just for that. It's just to get that like quick checkbox, that number. to send It's like sending to your shareholders. like We're doing the thing, and now we can get more money.
00:54:54
Speaker
ah Because like like you're saying, maternity homes done well and correctly are important. And honestly, based on the way that Christ-likeness was explained to you through evangelicalism,
00:55:08
Speaker
would be that it would be, it doesn't matter who you are where you're from, what happened, like we're here for you and to support you and to care for you and to send you on your way. And it's like, if, if even if you like removing like any, in any overarching goal of just making converts, um, because your care, the eternal, every eternity is what counts for them. But like,
00:55:34
Speaker
That would probably be more successful in making any sort of converts if they actually had a long game. if they Evangelos have no long game, you know?
00:55:46
Speaker
Probably. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's interesting, like, as I've, as I reported this story, i also began to think that this story is representative of of
Secular Maternity Homes and Political Challenges
00:55:58
Speaker
also a failing on the left.
00:56:00
Speaker
Yeah. Like, you know, everybody knows the name Planned Parenthood. If you want to go there for an abortion or, you know, maybe get birth control. I heard that's all they do. It's just a bunch of abortions.
00:56:12
Speaker
Like everybody knows that it's a household name, but there is no household name equivalent of I'm pregnant and I need help to keep in pair of my child. And I think the yeah left, you know, has so focused on protecting the right to end a pregnancy, which, you know, I personally believe should be protected. And it's, you know, something we don't have universally now in the United States. And it's we need to continue to fight to regain that.
00:56:38
Speaker
But that's not the only choice women want to make. And we need to make sure we're fighting to protect the choice to become a parent. um So in, you know, most maternity homes are religiously affiliated. So where are the, you know, the progressive folks on the left stepping up to say, i want to start a maternity home with, you know, that's not tied to a religious doctrine that is absolutely to help people. And so think you know i feel like for me, you know as I've reported this, yeah, this is you know this vacuum has been created that is being filled by you know conservative religious institutions now.
00:57:12
Speaker
I think that's a great point. That could work super well, too. I mean, especially right now with all the like ex-evangelical stuff and everything, like there's probably never been a better time to to introduce that sort of an option to people.
00:57:27
Speaker
And the, it's interesting too, because like the irony like of like, you mentioned, you talked about how like finances is the number one reason people say, I don't want to say choose to have an abortion, but like. It is. Yeah, it it is. Like they,
00:57:43
Speaker
They choose it, but within like a bad paradigm, right? It's not like when they look, when they weigh their options but and you take a lot of those options on the table, off the table, it's like not a fair choice, right?
00:57:54
Speaker
But then when you look, so when you, the need for those centers for people like that, but then when you look at like ah this, I could be, bit I might not know. I might be incorrect with this, but um my understanding is that a lot of people when you don't take financial means off the table, right?
00:58:13
Speaker
um ah A lot of abortions are for reasons of like, I i didn't, I just, I'm established in my career. I don't want to have kids. Like there, when you, so, but those are so much like smaller. And I think that's just weird when you, like, when you look at the financial component of abortion as a whole is like the people who actively,
00:58:35
Speaker
want to go that route is because like they have the means and then the people who don't want to go that route are forced into it because they don't have the means. and It's really sad.
00:58:47
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, data shows that, um, you know, the reasons why women have abortions are also very similar to the reasons why women place children for adoption. And it, it comes back, um, to a lack of support and a lack of financial resources and feeling like you have the ability to raise a child. um Obviously, there are, you know, many other reasons why women have abortions.
00:59:11
Speaker
um Like you said, it's a bad time for me in my career. I can't step away from work, you know, things like that. um Or I just don't want to have a child. Right. um You know, i already have two kids. You know, most abortions happen to women who already have children. They're already mothers and and feel like they can't take on more.
00:59:30
Speaker
um And and that's also, you know, ah Again, one of the reasons why women choose you know or go down the route of adoption, it's you know feeling like, you know I don't have the resources to care for this child, um except you know they've already gone through nine months of pregnancy and labor and, you know um For at least the birth mothers I've spoken to, both connected to the godparent home and otherwise, you know um you know I've never had a child myself and I've never been pregnant before. But um you know everyone says, you know as soon as you that baby comes, your brain is flooded with love hormones and you become it's this primal instinct to want to stay and protect your child. And you know separating from them is incredibly painful. But there is this really interesting study
01:00:17
Speaker
called and and in this kind of and um bringing this up as i it relates to like this idea in i think the pro-life movement where it's like adoption is just an alternative to abortion. um This study called the Turn Away Study, um it followed women who were denied abortions and looked at what their outcomes were.
01:00:37
Speaker
And over 95% of those women who were denied abortions simply went on to keep and parent those children. Only 5% place their children for adoption.
01:00:49
Speaker
So even when in the face of being denied an abortion, people don't, adoption is never really appealing to people. That's why nationally the adoption rate is around 1%. And even in that study, it's slightly higher 5%.
01:01:02
Speaker
But it's like such a tremendous you know thing to carry a child to term, feel that child moving inside of you, you know physically bonding with that child. And then to say, I'm going to permanently separate from them. It's just not an appealing thing that most women ever want to do.
01:01:19
Speaker
And so in that way, i think we need to be rethinking why women, choose if you do place your child for adoption, why are you doing it? Because it is so unappealing for most people. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:31
Speaker
Yeah. It's your body flooding with hormones. Uh, it's kind of a naturalistic thing, right? Cause it's, it floods you with hormones so that you don't eat the, you don't eat the baby, right?
01:01:44
Speaker
You don't eat it. You don't stone it. You don't kill it. Yeah. And that overwhelmingly is a good thing. Yeah. I agree.
01:01:56
Speaker
Well, I think, uh, you know, um, being in a Midwest knuckle dragger. Uh, I think the, the whole concept in the final part of the show about like, you know, reproductive rights versus, um, reproductive justice.
01:02:15
Speaker
I feel like that gave me a lot to think about.
Emotional Impact on Listeners
01:02:18
Speaker
And, um, I think, I think you're right in that. Like there's, there's a hole here that people outside of the religious world need to fill.
01:02:29
Speaker
You know, and um and I think I think it would be best for everybody if they could, if if people could recenter that conversation around, you know, away from away from just like abortion, no abortion to like, OK, let's let's talk about people who do want to want to be a parent, but like they're just their circumstances are impossible, you know,
01:02:56
Speaker
and um Yeah, I don't know. Man, I i really enjoyed your your show. i found myself struggling to listen to it a couple of times. Like, I was trying to finish it this week, and just like, God, it's so sad.
01:03:08
Speaker
It is really sad, yeah. I mean, it it was hard. it was really hard to do some of those interviews. Yeah. yeah You know, especially talking with Abby and Nathan, you know, it was...
01:03:22
Speaker
you know I ah tried as a journalist to maintain my professionalism, but I started to cry just listening to them and it was hard. um But you know i I feel like they're really very brave and um I'm so, so grateful for them um you know them and everyone else who participated for being willing to talk. So um I hope everybody, if yeah, you might have to take some breaks, but I hope people listen. Yeah, definitely. Everyone definitely go check it out. It's a fantastic podcast, Liberty Lost. it's ah
01:03:58
Speaker
I agree. I'm getting through it. It was like the amount of times I like had to... i' And I have three kids and it's just like the idea and I just had a baby over the summer. And it's just like I just kept thinking about that. like The idea of set like just...
01:04:13
Speaker
being forced into a position where you have to separate yourself from it. It's gut-wrenching to just listen to and think about and consider. and um So thank you for making such a tremendous podcast ah and and centering the conversation around like,
01:04:29
Speaker
Again, reproductive justice and and um and I appreciate your you the conversation around um what where the left has failed um because people don't, that's like you know, it's easy to come out of that world and and harp on the side that's actively done harm.
01:04:47
Speaker
um But, the you know, if you care enough about the harm that's been done, then it'd be, it would be really beautiful to see the left people on the left, people step up to really, to, to take care of the people who are certainly in need of it. So ah thanks so much, TJ, for joining us. Thank you for the conversation. it was great having you.
01:05:09
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me. This was great. it was wonderful talking with you both. with you both. Sorry. do you have ah Do you have a future project in mind or do you need ideas?
01:05:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'm taking some time, cooking around kicking around a couple different things. I don't know if you've ever heard of the program Mercy Multiplied.
01:05:34
Speaker
um I'm starting to look into that. I got a tip about it. It's a also a Christian residential facility for girls and young women. um They're currently operational in three states and are opening a new location in Florida soon.
01:05:47
Speaker
and um But the the facility you know claims to help girls and young women who are struggling with it with things like eating disorders, self-harm, depression, anxiety, But according to the former residents I've spoken to, there are no actual doctors there. And it's all just let us cure you through prayer.
01:06:05
Speaker
um oh And Joel Osteen sits on the board. and Okay. Big funder. Oh, I'd love to see that guy taken down. So starting look into that. Yeah.
01:06:20
Speaker
I connected with five different women so far. um and also um i was approached by a law firm um who represents pregnant women in alabama and there's this one county in alabama that incarcerates more pregnant women than anywhere else in the united states um and it's kind of looking like a blueprint uh for how you yeah do pregnancy criminalization um so I'm thinking about maybe taking a trip down to Alabama after the holidays and and hanging around near the jail for a while and seeing who will talk to me.
01:06:56
Speaker
So um very very light, very, very easy. um I do have a tip. I don't know if you've heard of something called the Epstein files, but I don't know. Just an idea Look into it.
01:07:09
Speaker
but One of the podcasts I made called is called Broken Jeffrey Epstein. It came out. It came out three weeks after he died in jail. not going to say right ah how he died, but, you know, um I have actually, you know, you know who Virginia Giuffre is, sort of the main accuser. I got to interview her in person as well as.
01:07:29
Speaker
Oh, wow. Several other of Epstein's victims. um And I actually was in the courtroom ah two days after he died when all of the survivors came into court and the judge allowed them to speak because the trial would obviously not be going forward because he was dead.
01:07:45
Speaker
um And I was there in the court that day. so Whoa. Yeah, i definitely am familiar with Epstein. Broken Jeffrey Epstein. that's That's the show. I was a producer. I was not the host of that one. so okay I feel like most of my ideas kind of drift towards reality shows. you know Like some sort of ah bachelorette type thing that follows like Erica Trump's search for a new boat.
01:08:12
Speaker
Interesting. That would be fun. Like a house full of sociopaths from across the world. um Or, dude, I pitched this to the gangster capitalism guy, but he didn't take me up on it. I feel like you could just follow Barron Trump around at college and keep his fingers out of people's drinks.
01:08:32
Speaker
Hey, I'm in New York. Maybe I should go over to NYU and let's just hang around. No, I don't want to get ah the the secret service would probably be on me. yeah yeah um Anyway, ah this was really fun. ah Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Where where can people follow your work?
Connect with TJ Raphael
01:08:55
Speaker
ah Yeah, i you know my website is TJRafael.com. That's Rafael, like the Ninja Turtle or the painter with a PH. h um Or you know i'm on Instagram or LinkedIn. I deleted my Twitter and I don't really do stuff on Blue Sky. I have like 60 followers there. So ah Instagram or or yeah just through my website.
01:09:16
Speaker
So yeah. Excellent. Well, everybody check those out. Go listen to Liberty Lost and we will talk to you next time.