When Wendy discovered she was pregnant at the age of 18, she thought she had only one option: abortion.

Her 15-year-old boyfriend was clueless. Her parents told her to abort and on the advice of her friends she visited an illegal clinic which carries out abortions without the agreement of two doctors and beyond the 24-week gestation period deadline stipulated by Hong Kong law as the final date at which abortions are permitted.

After an initial visit to that clinic, Wendy decided to go for an ultrasound. It was a move that stopped her resorting to desperate measures.

"The doctor let me hear the heartbeat of the baby. It was at that point when I heard the heartbeat I decided to keep the baby," she said.

Wendy went on to have the baby after moving into the pregnant girl's hostel at Mother's Choice, afterwards putting the baby up for adoption, and then later returning to work at the hostel as a volunteer.

Wendy is not alone in giving thought to the desperate measure of having an illegal abortion. She says she knows of two other girls who took this option, one of whom had an illegal abortion on the mainland when she was six months pregnant.

The Family Planning Association says that more than one third of the 18-27 year-olds who participated in a 2011 survey who had undergone an abortion had travelled to the mainland for the operation.

One of the chief concerns of health experts is that the young women who choose this option are not only risking their physical health but also making an important decision without the necessary counseling, support and full knowledge of the procedure and its possible side-effects.

Alia Eyres, chief executive officer of Mother's Choice, said it was this issue of young women seeking abortions on the mainland, highlighted by the press 25 years ago that inspired the creation of Mother's Choice by Helen and Gary Stephens and her parents, Phyllis and Ranjan Marwah.

"You have to be pretty desperate to be eight months pregnant and go over the border for an abortion. You are risking your life. What kind of situation must these girls be in to do this?" said Eyres.

"They (the founders) said 'What can we do about this?' They did some research and they found there really wasn't a place these girls could go to that wasn't basically a juvenile delinquent center. The needed a place where they can be loved, not judged, and looked after."

The four held their first press conference in 1987 announcing their plan to set up the charity hostel to provide non-judgmental help to young women with crisis pregnancies.

Within 24 hours they had received their first call from a hospital social worker and had taken in their first pregnant girl. One day later, she gave birth to her baby.

"Since then we have grown into an organization with four different services. We have our pregnant girl service which is our counseling center and hotline which takes more than 3,000 calls a year," said Eyres.

"We have counselled over 50,000 young girls, we have cared for 3,600 babies and children with special needs and, because we believe in prevention not just intervention, we have gone into schools and educated 510,000 parents, students and teachers.

"We have assisted with 1,500 adoptions of healthy babies and more than 200 adoptions of children with special needs.

"They stay with us for a month or three months, depending on their situation, and we teach them parenting skills, help them get job training, and reconnect them with their families or a support network.

"At Mother's Choice we don't take any political stance. We just want to be there for those who need love and support. The reason we chose the name Mother's Choice was because many teenage mothers or girls facing crisis pregnancy feel they have no choice.

"We believe women have three choices: terminate, parenting, or adoption. Not one of them is easy. All of them are painful and these young women will have to live with the decision they make for the rest of their lives.

"Our work is not simply being there for them, but empowering them so they not only get through this situation, but have hope for the future."

(HK Edition 10/31/2012 page4)