In the hopes of “saving” those “at risk” of terminating their pregnancies, anti-abortion maternity homes advertised themselves as safe havens, offering housing and other resources to women and girls experiencing crisis pregnancies for little or no fee. While some pregnant people may have found much-needed comfort and security in these services, other residents’ stays were marred by abuse. Deliberately hidden from public view, little is known about these ever-elusive institutions. Nevertheless, the evidence we do have from residents’ testimonies and anti-abortion literature offers a glimpse into the anti-abortion movement’s evolving strategies in the 1980s and 1990s and sparks pertinent questions about women’s reproductive agency.
Political scientist Laura Hussey describes maternity homes as part of the anti-abortion movement’s “service” branch because, like CPCs, they worked to challenge the accusation that anti-abortion activists did little to temper the financial and emotional burdens of pregnancy and childrearing. Operating against a backdrop of welfare cuts, maternity homes hoped to provide an attractive alternative to abortion by providing the comfort and security necessary to make carrying one’s pregnancy to term possible. For instance, Bayard House, an independent maternity home in Wilmington, Delaware proclaimed that many of its residents felt “deprived of a free choice in deciding whether or not to keep their pregnancies because they lack[ed] necessary support or resources.” As this appropriation of the feminist language of reproductive “choice” makes clear, maternity homes sought to demonstrate their concern for pregnant women as well as fetuses: an increasingly salient anti-abortion tactic in the 1980s and 1990s.
As well as offering material services, maternity homes promised the discretion some pregnant people desired. An advertisement for Gentle Shepherd Child Placement Services in Olathe, Kansas stated, “If you have no place to turn, we have housing available for you during your pregnancy. This could be of special interest to you if you want to ‘go away’ to have your baby.” And testimony from an anonymous resident at Regina Residence in Port Jefferson, New York expressed relief that, since relinquishing her child for adoption and returning from the maternity home, “I’ve been out with my friends who knew nothing [about my pregnancy or adoption]… No one looks at me suspiciously.” Post-Roe maternity homes were thus depicted as sanctuaries for women who wished to keep their pregnancies private and thus free from potential judgment if they decided to give birth and put their child for adoption.