As can be seen from the table, many of the themes raised by women relate to women themselves and their readiness for children, in addition to the stigma of lone parenthood and a woman's right to choose. While abortion is often considered tantamount to a rejection of nurturance, this is a simpler view than the one taken by the interviewees. Many women set high demands for motherhood and spoke of how little they could offer a child and the way this contrasted with how much they would like to offer a child, or what they considered appropriate to offer a child. The decision to have an abortion is often made within a social context which includes others. Social stigma Abortion is illegal in Ireland and considered immoral by a high proportion of the population, so it is a stigmatised form of behaviour.
Secrecy is inevitable.
But lone parenthood is also a source of social stigma and abortion protects women from experiencing this stigma. Consequently secrecy about the pregnancy is antecedent to and in most cases a prerequisite of secrecy about the abortion. In their interviews women explained why they kept their pregnancies secret from their parents. Pregnancies are now more likely to be planned or occur within appropriate social arrangements. However, not all women wish to become mothers and ten of the women interviewed in the abortion sample said they never wanted to have a child.