Her Bishop Apologized. She Wants Accountability for Coerced Adoptions

FRANCINE GURTLER SAT before the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in December 2025, unsure of what he would say. For more than three years, Gurtler has called for the denomination to investigate its role in forcing women in church-operated or -supported maternity homes to relinquish their children for adoption.

In 1971, Gurtler was living in St. Faith’s Home for Unwed Mothers, operated within the New York diocese of the Episcopal Church, when she was coerced into giving up her newborn son. “I was not given a choice,” she said.