As debate around abortion continues, this adoption agency cofounder talks about an alternative
AS AN ADOPTEE I ADVOCATE FOR IT OVER IVF
The landscape surrounding abortion in our state continues to shift. Lawmakers repealed an 1864 abortion ban that didn’t include exceptions for rape or incest. Now, a 15-week ban is in place — at least until the election in November, when voters could be voting to expand access to abortion even more.
As the debate around abortion rights swirl, The Show spent a few minutes learning about another option that some pregnant people choose: adoption.
Kelly Rourke is a cheerleader for adoption. She’s the cofounder of the adoption agency Building Arizona Families, and she was adopted herself when she was just 3 days old. Her birth mother was 16. She tracked her down years later, after she started this agency, and they became close until her death in 2016.
Rourke told The Show, in many ways, she is what guided her path in this work.
Full conversation
KELLY ROURKE: Because I'm one of the cofounders, you know, I have done every job within the agency from the ground all the way up, and I love working with birth mothers, because my mother is every birth mother that I work with, I see a little piece of my mother in her. And what was the most important thing for me, after I met my birth mother is increasing adoption awareness. That's why I have a podcast. That's why I love to do interviews, because I think it's really important to get correct information out to people, so they understand what adoption is and what it isn't.
LAUREN GILGER: So I want to talk more in a moment about those sort of misconceptions around adoption that you referenced there. But let's let's talk a little bit about what the organization does. You're a licensed, you know, adoption agency. Let's talk about who comes to you first of all, like in this organization, how do people find you?
ROURKE: Women come to us through referrals from their OB/GYN. A lot of women are homeless, and they're on the street and word gets out on the street, that, you know, placing your baby for adoption is a great option because you know, rather than your baby going into the department of child safety, you're able to you know, keep in contact with the family with the child, you get to pick the adoptive family. So, word gets out on the street and women talk to other women. Obviously, the biggest compliment is when another client, a former client, refers us to another woman who's looking to place their baby for adoption.
GILGER: You mentioned a few of the the sort of demographics you're looking at there in terms of the people who come in your doors. But, in general, are you looking at a lot of you know, teen moms, you mentioned homeless women, you know, who what is their motivation when they come to you?
ROURKE: Our demographics are not at all what you see on TV or in the movies. Teenage moms, I would say are less than 1% of the clientele that we work with, maybe one to 2%, actually one to 2%. It's not very common at all, I would say the average age is closer to 23 to 32. A lot of the women that we work with are substance users. A lot of them are homeless when they come to us. A lot of them have been in the system themselves, and so they're making choices for their, their baby so that their baby doesn't wind up in the state system, and they are able to be a participant in the choices for their child's childhood.
GILGER: So talk about the services that you can offer them. I mean, it sounds like it goes beyond just placing the baby for adoption. But if you're talking about right, if you're talking about women who come to you and are addicted to substances, I mean, there must be some, I guess treatment they can go through with you or would have to go through with you.
ROURKE: Actually, it's not treatment with us the way that it works because we are an adoption agency. We're not a rehab facility. We use intensive case managers. So, we are able to connect with any other case managers that they're working with. So, sometimes women come to us and they have like, they go to a methadone clinic, or they are receiving services through Magellan for mental health. And so we are, we make sure to coordinate with all of the workers that they are working with so that we can provide a global approach and make sure that everybody as a team is involved. So when women come to us, and they are wanting to get clean, again, that is something that we can give them referrals and resources, but it's not something that we provide on site.
GILGER: OK. Talk about the help that you provide them outside of just the adoption, and, it sounds like, beyond giving birth.
ROURKE: We've always helped women after they deliver in terms of adoption counseling. So, when they come to us, we make sure that they see an adoption adoption counselor that is independent of our agency and making sure it's the right choice for them. We will provide this counseling throughout their pregnancy as often as they want it and after they deliver. We can help them if some women want to go back to school and so we care them into looking at admissions. It's not from a financial aspect, it's from a case management aspect.
So, we can help coordinate with them. We help them create a resume. We help them if they want to go on an interview, and they're nervous about what that's going to look like, you know, we can do mock interviews with them. You know, housing, Arizona is in a huge housing crisis right now, and we can definitely help women try to identify an apartment. They are eligible if they qualify for financial assistance after they deliver. So there, once a woman delivers and places her baby for adoption, we're still able to help them with their living expenses for six weeks after they deliver. We really want women who come into our agency to leave in a better position than when they came to us. We don't want a woman who comes into us and is homeless to leave the program and still be homeless. Does that happen? Yes.
GILGER: Okay, so let me ask you about the broader landscape here. A lot of centers that promote giving women alternatives to abortion, right, are strongly opposed to abortion or part of the anti-abortion movement. Would you classify your organization in that camp?
ROURKE: Our organization takes a very neutral approach. We are not a political organization. We are licensed by the state of Arizona. We also hold a Hague accreditation for adoption, and so again, we take a very neutral approach. We want to be a resource that women can use if they are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and want to place their child for adoption.
GILGER: Do you think the changes in abortion law in the state right now will impact what you do? Like do you anticipate seeing more adoptions because fewer women may be able to get abortions in the future?
ROURKE: I think it's definitely too soon to tell. I think maybe in a year, we will be able to answer that a little bit more accurately, because right now, it's so soon. And the changes are continually occurring as to what may or may not happen with the laws that have been passed. So, I would still stand by it's just too soon to tell.
GILGER: Yeah. I wonder, I wonder how you navigate this, right? Because a lot of folks in this conversation would talk about the the choice between having an abortion or going through something like an adoption instead, like, have you ever had a woman start the process with you and then decide to have an abortion instead? How do you navigate that?
ROURKE: I've been doing this for almost 20 years, I I can think of maybe one situation. Usually what we see is women who have had previous abortions, and are experiencing another unplanned pregnancy will actually choose adoption. The women that we speak with that have been in this situation have said they didn't even know that adoption existed. And they didn't know that that was an option for them.
GILGER: Is that part of the conversation, though? When you're talking to women about their choices here, you say like, 'well, you can go through this with us, and here's the things that we can do for you. But also you could have an abortion up until this point?'
ROURKE: No, that's again, we take a very neutral approach. So because we're an adoption agency, when they come to us, our focus is adoption. You know, they get to choose an adoptive family. They get to choose whether they want open, semi-open or closed adoption. That's not what an adoption agency would do.
GILGER: Yeah. Okay, so final question for you then Kelly. I wonder, what do you want people to know about the work that you do that you think might be misunderstood?
ROURKE: We are working with women with an unplanned pregnancy, and we are there to help them place their baby for adoption. This is not something that is monetarily incentivized. This is not something that we have an ulterior motive for. This is women. A lot of women who work for us are a member of the adoption triad themselves. And so not only are we professionally invested in what we do every day, but we're also personally invested because this is personal for a lot of us. These women are really heroes. This is a hard choice.
GILGER: All right. We will leave it there for now. That is Kelly Rourke, president and CEO of Building Arizona Families. Kelly, thank you for coming on. Thanks for telling us your story here and about what you do. I appreciate it.
ROURKE: Absolutely.
KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.
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