In the new podcast Liberty Lost, journalist T.J. Raphael uncovers a deeply unsettling system operating within the bounds of one of America’s largest evangelical universities. Set in the heart of Lynchburg, Virginia, at Liberty University, the story centers around the Liberty Godparent Home—a little-known facility for pregnant teens with close institutional and ideological ties to the university founded by Jerry Falwell Sr.
What begins as a place of supposed refuge for young, unmarried women who become pregnant quickly reveals itself to be a pressure chamber for coerced adoption—wrapped in Christian fundamentalist dogma and amplified by the material incentives of access to a Liberty University education. For some girls, like Abbi, the protagonist of the podcast’s first episodes, the cost of obedience is not only personal but generational.
The podcast, released by Wondery and available on all major platforms, chronicles Abbi’s harrowing journey into the Liberty Godparent Home, where she’s isolated from her family and friends, counseled by religious figures with a clear agenda, and told in no uncertain terms that “God wants her baby to go to a more deserving Christian couple.” Behind the language of “choice” and “support,” the message is clear: parenting is discouraged, and adoption is moralized.
These adoptions are not only shaped by theology but by an implicit transaction. Girls who go through with adoption are more likely to receive full scholarships to Liberty University. Refuse, and they risk being cast aside—denied the academic support and financial stability promised by the institution. It’s a system in which teenage girls’ reproductive choices are entangled with Liberty’s brand of moral authority, educational opportunity, and patriarchal control.
Raphael carefully weaves together interviews with former residents, including those who’ve grown into adulthood haunted by the trauma of giving up their children. Their stories span decades, and together they paint a picture of a deeply entrenched culture of reproductive coercion masked as Christian charity. The podcast also traces how these practices—long thought to have faded after the peak of “maternity homes” in the 20th century—are resurging in post-Roe America. Liberty is not an outlier, but rather a flagship in a growing movement.
The implications for higher education are chilling. Liberty University, already known for its regressive social policies and political entanglements, appears to be operating a pipeline where vulnerable teens are funneled through a reproductive system designed to serve religious ideology and institutional branding, rather than their own well-being. It’s not just a question of faith—it’s a question of ethics, autonomy, and what happens when educational institutions leverage opportunity against obedience.
Liberty Lost should serve as a call to investigate not just one university or one home, but an entire network of under-regulated faith-based institutions profiting—spiritually and materially—from the forced sacrifices of young women. At a time when the nation’s reproductive rights are under siege, the podcast is both a warning and a demand: to listen, to document, and to hold accountable those who wield education as a weapon.
For those interested in the intersections of religion, power, and reproductive justice in U.S. higher education, Liberty Lost is essential listening—and a sobering reminder that the struggle for bodily autonomy does not end at the gates of a university. It may very well begin there.
