Leaders in foster care, adoption look at post-Roe landscape for their ministries

(OSV News) -- When Kimberly Henkel and her husband, Greg, first welcomed a baby boy into their home through fostering, they realized in a new way that children are a gift.

"He wasn't ours, but what we realized is that no child is truly ours," she told OSV News. "Whether we give birth to this child, whether we foster this child, whether we adopt this child, we get the privilege of taking care of this child and loving this child ... but ultimately, these children -- all of them -- belong to God."

Today, the Henkels are the founders of Springs of Love, a ministry dedicated to raising up more Catholic foster and adoptive families and to supporting those involved through educational programming, small groups and parish care teams. Kimberly, who also serves as executive director, said their nonprofit began in 2022 following the Dobbs decision.

The Supreme Court's landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, which had legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, and freed individual states to decide abortion policy. The June 24, 2022, ruling led experts to question whether new abortion restrictions could lead to an increase in foster care and adoption needs.

Henkel and other leaders of foster care and adoption ministries spoke about today's landscape amid May's National Foster Care Month and ahead of Dobbs' third anniversary. They called foster care and adoption a pressing pro-life issue and emphasized the need for Catholics to get involved, whether by fostering and adopting themselves or by supporting those who do.

"While not everyone can bring a child into their home, everyone can do something to support those that can," Kathy White, foster ministry coordinator of Thrive Foster Care Ministry, the foster care ministry of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, told OSV News in emailed comments.

Nearly 370,000 children are in foster care in the United States, with more than 100,000 waiting to be adopted, according to the most recent national report for fiscal year 2022 from the U.S. government's Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, or AFCARS. The report also showed a years-long decrease in the number of children in foster care, the number of children waiting to be adopted from foster care and the number of those adopted.

The AFCARS report lists the circumstances associated with children's removal from their home environment, for children entering foster care during fiscal year 2022, including neglect (62%), parental drug abuse (33%), the caretaker's inability to cope (13%), physical abuse (13%) and housing (11%).

Following the Dobbs decision, estimates found that the number of abortions increased. At the same time, there isn't good data available to determine the impact, if any, of Dobbs on foster care and adoption, according to Ryan Hanlon, president and CEO of National Council for Adoption.

"I think when we get 2023 and 2024 data," he told OSV News, "we'll be able to create essentially a matrix, where we can look and see which states changed laws, how did they change and then what was the impact."

"It's really possible that it won't have a direct or immediate impact because there's so many different factors involved," he added. "If we're thinking through something that would be like, say, an alternative to abortion, parenting is going to be much more commonly chosen."

In Texas, which generally protects unborn babies from abortion, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops raises awareness about foster care through its St. Joseph Ministry. Helen Osman, communications consultant for the Texas Catholic conference, said in emailed comments that local Catholic agencies have told conference staff they are experiencing an increase in parents accessing their pregnancy care centers and seeking assistance in parenting skills.

In California, which enacted constitutional protections for abortion as a "fundamental right" in 2022, Kathleen Domingo, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, told OSV News in an email they have seen an increase in women obtaining abortions in California in addition to women traveling to California from other states for abortions.

At Thrive Foster Care Ministry, White noted an increase in women traveling to Kansas from other states to obtain abortions, citing numbers from the Charlotte Lozier Institute. The state generally prohibits abortion at 22 weeks gestation, with exceptions.

Melissa Bowe, director of family services at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin, which has provided adoption services for more than 100 years, said they saw a slight increase in the need for their services, but only immediately after the Dobbs decision. The state bans abortions at 22 weeks gestation.

"We have had women come to us specifically because of Dobbs, because they wanted to get an abortion and they couldn't," she said.

Bowe said that their numbers have remained consistent over the last three years, with about 60 to 70 finalizations (the completion of the adoption process in court) per year. However, they are seeing an increase in relatives, particularly grandparents, seeking to adopt their grandchildren.

Bowe's agency is responding: They are connecting these grandparents with each other so that they know they're not alone.

Other ministries are responding -- and rapidly expanding, including Kimberly's Springs of Love and White's Thrive Foster Care Ministry. Both are experiencing increased interest from parishes and other communities. They're finding that people want to step up once they know there's a need and a way to help.

When White began her position one year ago, six parishes in her archdiocese ran active foster ministries. Today, there are 11, with an additional two that have expressed interest. White described these ministries as teams of people who want to accompany foster families by providing wraparound support. They do everything from regularly checking in on families and cooking meals to babysitting and folding laundry.

"A lot of people say the Catholics are just about the babies," White told OSV News by phone. "But we're also about supporting the moms, we're about supporting the families."

Springs of Love, a sister ministry of Springs in the Desert, a Catholic infertility ministry, is the only national ministry in the church connected to foster care, Kimberly said. It offers a slew of resources online, including discernment resources, fostering and adopting information, and ways to get involved. The ministry is currently creating a curriculum, or video-based formation program, for foster, adoptive and discerning families.

Springs of Love is also opening chapters nationwide, many of which are parish-based, to support foster and adoptive families. They already have ones in Colorado, Kentucky, New York, Ohio and Washington.

The Henkels know this issue inside and out: Kimberly and her husband struggled with infertility before adopting four children, including two from foster care. That first baby boy they welcomed in is now their 11-year-old son. They also have twin 10-year-old daughters and a 6-year-old son.

"All of us need to be praying, asking God how he's calling us," Kimberly Henkel said. "How is God calling you to love?"