"I think many single mothers would consider abortion before they would consider adoption. I'm not saying a termination is quick and easy, but it's probably less heart-breaking than to carry a child and then give it up."
The speaker is one of six single mothers gathered in the headquarters of Cherish, in Pembroke Street, Dublin. Cherish was started by single mothers in the 1970s when pregnancy outside marriage was fiercely stigmatised and almost always ended in adoption. In supporting the right of single mothers to keep their children, Cherish has been a major force in changing social attitudes.
The women say they could not go through with an adoption after carrying a child for nine months. "It would be like a bereavement," one says. "You've lost the child you had in your womb for nine months and it would be literally like the child dying, so I suppose it would be very hard, like a bereavement of somebody that you loved."
Although they see adoption as hard on the birth mother, they also see it as praiseworthy if she feels unable to care for a child. "I think it's a good thing if a child can go into a family, a loving family, where they are really wanted," says one. "I certainly couldn't do it myself but I do think it's a great idea."
One woman has a friend whose child was adopted through an adoption agency in recent years.
"The child is held for six weeks with a foster parent and they let the mother visit for six weeks - and the father if he wants to - to see whether she would like to keep the child or have the child adopted. After the six weeks she had it right in her mind, she loved the baby but she felt she could not keep the child. She still gets photographs from the parents now, so they're [the adoption societies] trying to be more child-friendly."
This account is in stark contrast to the misinformation which some of the group have about adoptions. One believes babies put up for adoption can be rejected, especially if they are not white, and can spend years in foster homes. Another says social workers might take the baby from its adoptive home after a few years and that it would be put into care.
The group sees the regular information given to the birth mother as crucial. "Without any contact you'd be walking up the street and you'd think, is that my child? Is he talking, is he walking, how's he doing at school?"
They are less sure about the value of the more open type of adoption in which the birth mother would visit the child a number of times a year. "It might be harder. It might be even more traumatic to have that continuously in your life day in day out, going to see the child."
The mother whose friend had her baby adopted is the only one who considered it herself. "I was in contact with a social worker and she was very very helpful. She told me about all my options. She even told me about abortion which wasn't on the cards at all. She gave me information on adoption and on keeping the baby." She is also the only one of the group who had contact with a social worker during pregnancy.
Many of them say the stigma which still attaches to being a single mother encourages some to have abortions. As if to confirm this, nobody in the group was prepared to be photographed with her child for this article.
Cherish can be contacted at 2 Lower Pembroke Street, Dublin 2, tel 01662 9212.