Aboliphobia: a neologism to name the symbolic violence against abolitionist thought on adoption

The term Aboliphobia, coined by Olmo Gómez Aldaz in 2025, is proposed as a neologism to describe a specific form of symbolic violence directed against abolitionist thought on adoption. This hostility—often denied, ridiculed, or pathologized—acts as a cultural defense mechanism that protects the adoptive system and its moral imagery of “rescue” and “salvation.” Aboliphobia manifests itself across institutional, media, and professional discourses that seek to invalidate or silence critical perspectives on adoption, reproducing exclusionary patterns similar to those found in other forms of social or political phobia. Naming this violence allows for recognition of its structural dimension and its psychic, social, and epistemic effects on abolitionist individuals and movements.