Like many teenagers growing up in foster care, Wednesday Pope had few opportunities to learn about reproductive health.
She missed out on sex ed because she moved to a different school every year. When it came to information about abortion, Pope said she was “left completely in the dark.” She couldn’t ask her mother, and haphazard Google searches and conversations with friends provided little clear guidance.
Now 26, Pope hopes to better equip California foster youth. As an advisor for the Oakland-based Reproductive Health Equity Project for Foster Youth, she is helping to spread sound information in an era when sexual and reproductive health care is under attack.
Pope helped put together the project’s new report, Abortion Insights from Conversations with Youth in Foster Care, released May 13. Revealing rarely heard perspectives of California foster youth, it outlines the barriers to accessing abortion and explores how young people struggle with misinformation and judgmental attitudes.
Young adults in foster care are particularly vulnerable because they lack parents who can equip them with reliable information and support. And as a result, social pressure and shame prevent them from making the best decision about their reproductive health, the report revealed.
“That stigma is making foster youth less informed and taking away a lot of their autonomy over their bodies, their lives and even their futures,” Pope said. “They need to understand what is misinformation and what is fact.”
In 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade, 13 states barreled ahead with total abortion bans, which prohibit ending a pregnancy at any stage, for any reason. In states where the medical procedure to terminate pregnancy is still legal, the federal government under President Donald Trump has drastically reduced funding for Planned Parenthood and other clinics that provide contraceptives and reproductive health care.
Raised by the government, foster youth have long struggled to obtain adequate information about sex education, including abortion. The Imprint’s 2023 High Stakes, Silent Systems investigation revealed that in many parts of the country there is only scant guidance for caregivers and caseworkers on sexual and reproductive health. Analysis of tens of thousands of pages of child welfare policy manuals revealed little or no mention of healthy relationships and sex education, or the rights of foster youth to access contraception and abortion. Some states had not updated their policies in decades.
California lawmakers addressed the issue in 2017. They passed Senate Bill 89, a landmark law that provides foster youth ages 10 and older with sexual health education and the ability to access confidential reproductive health care. Under the law, caseworkers must verify that young people receive the required education every six months.
Nonetheless, obtaining trustworthy information about abortion remains a challenge for many young adults in foster care, the new report found.
The Reproductive Health Equity Project for Foster Youth, a nonprofit that promotes the healthy development of young people in state care, conducted focus groups in 2024 that included 20 current and former California foster youth ages 18 to 24. The goal was to better understand their attitudes, beliefs and sources of information around abortion care at a time when reproductive rights are being stripped away. The resulting 14-page report is aimed at California advocates as well as social workers and providers who work with these young adults.
It found they held false perceptions about the risk of abortion procedures, lacked support while looking to terminate a pregnancy and experienced coercive attitudes from adults in their lives about whether and how to seek reproductive health care.
“They had no real choice and were pushed to make a significant medical decision without meaningful scientific information or a full understanding of their options.”
—Abortion Insights from Conversations with Youth in Foster Care report
Survey participants reported they first learned about abortion from the media, religious institutions and the opinions of adults in their lives — rather than from medically accurate information. Initially, they had negative perceptions of abortion, describing it as “scary,” “wrong” or “unsafe.” Upon learning more, however, they were surprised to learn it is safe, with about as much risk as getting wisdom teeth pulled, according to the report.
Several youth reported they felt “they had no real choice and were pushed to make a significant medical decision without meaningful scientific information or a full understanding of their options,” the report reads.
For example, some young adults felt pressure to have an abortion because of the idea that foster youth shouldn’t become parents. Others reported that they felt coerced into giving birth and giving up their newborns to adoptive parents.
They hesitated to disagree with adults for fear of losing support and housing.
“I felt no matter the choice I felt was right, I was going to be judged regardless, so I felt a lot of guilt having conversations about abortion,” one foster youth commented.
Cindy Cruz, an advocate with the National Center for Youth Law who directs the Reproductive Health Equity Project for Foster Youth, said perceptions about abortion have shifted since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling, even in California. Many foster youth don’t know abortion is legal there, and that they can access it without the permission of a caregiver at any age, she said, citing state law.
Cruz added that another challenge comes from “crisis pregnancy centers” — religious nonprofits that target people seeking reproductive health care and try to deter them from having abortions.
“As we see the number of these centers increase, we also are going to see more reproductive coercion towards young people, particularly vulnerable youth like those from the foster care system,” she said.
In a post-Roe world, the Reproductive Health Equity Project for Foster Youth is working to improve knowledge about abortion, Pope said. The group is tackling the stigma through an Instagram campaign and a podcast series. It makes sure to provide peer-reviewed health research rather than the latest memes on social media, she said.
They also created Teen Talk Foster Youth, a virtual sex-ed class specifically for youth in California’s foster care system that allows them to ask questions in a safe space. In the months ahead, Pope said the group is also working on finding ways to help young adults seeking abortions — providing free transportation and access to abortion doulas, someone who can accompany them and provide emotional support.
Pope, who serves on the reproductive health project’s Youth Advisory Board, said she wants more young people to be able to lean on nonjudgmental adults, who can listen to what they need.
“We shouldn’t be influencing the decisions of foster youth,” Pope said, “and we want to help them make the best decision for themselves, whether that’s parenting or abortion care.”
