The Gist – Episode Summary
Podcast: The Gist
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: TJ Raphael
Episode: TJ Raphael on the Liberty Godparent Trap and the Cost of Coercion
Date: December 4, 2025
Main Theme
This episode of The Gist features an in-depth interview with journalist/podcaster TJ Raphael about her investigative podcast, Liberty Lost. The discussion unpacks the practices of the Liberty Godparent Home—a maternity and adoption facility connected to Liberty University—that, according to Raphael’s reporting, systematically coerced pregnant teens into giving up their babies for adoption. The conversation broadens to interrogate the intersection of conservative religious doctrine, shame, and profit motives in the American private adoption industry, and considers the contemporary implications for adoption law and reproductive rights.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Unveiling the Liberty Godparent Home
- Liberty Godparent Home: A maternity facility on the Liberty University campus for pregnant girls 12-21, directly tied to an adoption agency, Family Life Services, under the same board as Liberty University ([12:15], [13:11]).
- The physical and administrative setup creates a pipeline: young, often religious women enter the home and are aggressively encouraged—if not overtly coerced—to place their babies for adoption.
Quote:
"I see a real conflict of interest here where you're purporting to be a maternity home that will help a young woman in crisis determine whether or not to keep and parent her child or place that child for adoption. But literally next door... it seems like the real motivation and purpose of the maternity home was to supply the adoption agency with children to adopt out."
— TJ Raphael [20:10]
2. Mechanics of Coercion: Shame, Guilt & Control
- Atmosphere inside the Home: Residents are cut off from outside contact, even family, for the first month; calls monitored; strict, shame-driven environment ([15:43]).
- Girls were told they needed to 'redeem' themselves via adoption after “sinning” through premarital sex.
- Families, sometimes wittingly sometimes not, are kept unaware of what transpires inside. Parental visits are tightly controlled.
Quote:
"Guilt and shame were tools of the trade. A lot of the purity culture messages that these young girls were getting at home... was carried over into the godparent home."
— TJ Raphael [13:40]
- Threats Against Boys: Families threatened birth fathers with statutory rape charges to force compliance with adoption plans—even when not legally viable ([16:47]).
3. Financial Incentives & Institutional Profiteering
- Adoption Fees: The affiliated agency charges a floor of $30,000-$40,000 per adoption ([19:54]), creating clear financial incentives for separating babies from their mothers.
- Fundraising: Girls paraded at church services and in mailers/TV specials to solicit donations, often directed to Jerry Falwell’s ministries rather than to support the girls ([20:10]).
4. Questioning Adoption as “Alternative to Abortion”
- Statistics: Research shows adoption is an extremely uncommon outcome among women denied abortions—only ~1% of women place infants for adoption ([22:14]).
- Women arriving at the Liberty Godparent Home had, almost universally, already decided against abortion; they wanted to keep their babies but were steered away from that outcome.
"The doctrine motivating the home was that a child belongs in a two parent heterosexual household... So we need to get this pure baby away from this sinful mother."
— TJ Raphael [22:14]
5. Open Adoptions: A Flawed “Solution”
- Rise of Open Adoption: Promised as a kinder, more flexible arrangement to convince girls to consent to adoption, but not reliably binding in most states ([24:22]).
- Reality: Agreements often collapse—by adolescence, two-thirds of open adoptions have closed, usually at the adoptive parents’ discretion. Birth mothers report feeling they must “walk on eggshells” to maintain any relationship ([26:23], [29:17]).
- There is little academic guidance or best practices for open adoption dynamics.
6. Legal Patchwork and Parental Rights
- Varying Revocation Periods: Legal rights to “take back” parental rights after signing adoption papers range from 30 days (NY) to zero (UT)—some states have even shortened these windows further ([34:34]).
Quote:
"In Utah, once your pen hits the paper, you have lost all rights to your child. Even in cases of fraud and duress, it cannot be reversed."
— TJ Raphael [35:44]
- Stat on Regret: 70% of relinquishing mothers wished they knew more about their legal rights before adoption ([34:01]).
7. After Dobbs: Adoption Policy in the Post-Roe Era
- Expansion Plans: Liberty Godparent Home and similar maternity homes are expanding, often with support from broad anti-abortion networks like Heartbeat International ([40:45]).
- Policy Incentives: Trump's administration has expanded adoption tax credits and explicitly called for more funding for adoption over abortion. This, despite many birth mothers stating that modest financial support would let them keep their babies ([43:19]).
Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps
-
"[W]hen I first started talking to her [Abby Johnson]... I kind of assumed... this is just a problem with that place... But as I started to do more research... I started to see a lot of the tactics... were actually being used in a lot of the adoption industry across the United States."
— TJ Raphael [10:59] -
"For the first month that these teenage girls are there, they're not allowed to have contact with anyone on the outside, including their own family members."
— TJ Raphael [15:43] -
"Abby's parents threatened Nathan, her then boyfriend... [with] statutory rape charges... if you try to stop this adoption, if you intervene..."
— TJ Raphael [17:13] -
"The people that did wind up pursuing it [adoption] do feel okay and happy about it... Even when it is an act of choice... it's hard. It's life's changing in a lot of ways."
— TJ Raphael, on birth mothers’ complex, often painful feelings about adoption [39:18] -
"Every single woman that I spoke to... by the time she arrived at the godparent home, she decided against abortion... These girls wanted their children."
— TJ Raphael [22:14] -
"Research shows that when, you know, the revocation periods are longer, the people that do wind up pursuing it do feel ok and happy about it... Even when it is an act of choice… it’s hard."
— TJ Raphael [38:27] -
"A lot of the birth mothers I talked to, you know, they said if I would have had $5,000, I would have kept my child."
— TJ Raphael [43:19]
Timestamps for Key Segments
| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 10:13 | Start of interview with TJ Raphael | | 12:15 | Breakdown of Liberty Godparent Home structure and its links to Liberty University| | 13:40 | Description of guilt, shame, and religious pressure in the home | | 15:43 | Control and isolation of pregnant teens | | 17:13 | Coercive threats against boyfriends | | 19:54 | Financial incentives and adoption fees | | 22:14 | Adoption vs. abortion decisions; stats from Turn Away Study | | 24:22 | Closed vs. open adoptions and their implications | | 26:23 | Comparing open adoption realities; lack of best practices | | 29:17 | Research showing most open adoptions eventually close | | 34:01 | Mothers’ regret and ignorance of legal rights | | 34:34 | Variation in state laws regarding revocation periods | | 40:45 | Post-Dobbs expansion, policy incentives, and financial supports | | 43:30 | End of interview wrap-up |
Tone & Style
Pesca and Raphael maintain an inquisitive, skeptical, and balance-seeking tone. The conversation is wide-ranging but always focuses on evidence and the human experience behind the numbers and policies. Pesca often adds dry humor or pointed asides, but the episode is empathetic toward the women affected and rigorously questions doctrinal and economic motives behind supposedly charitable adoption programs.
Final Thoughts
Liberty Lost exposes the less-visible forces shaping private adoption in religious America: shame, legal ambiguity, coercion, and profit. The episode serves as a cautionary look at how faith-based paternalism and inadequate social supports can conspire to constrict choice for vulnerable young women, with implications for law, policy, and the ethics of adoption itself.