A “destroyer of lives”. That is what a nun called adoption rights activist Susan Lohan when she sought answers from the religious order that brokered her adoption. Instead of being given the truth, Lohan was told not to ask questions. She was born in 1964 to one of thousands of unmarried mothers forcibly separated from their children – usually women who had no choice but adoption due to their circumstances.
In the mid-60s in Ireland, up to 97% of all children born to unmarried mothers, like Lohan, were taken for adoption, mainly by the religious institutions and agencies that controlled social services and opposed reproductive choice.