'The Scarlet Woman in Person': The Establishment of a Family Planning Service in Northern Ireland, 1950-1974

Abstract

There is now an increasing body of research on the history of birth control and family planning. However, little work has yet been carried out on the provision and establishment of clinics at a local and regional level after 1945. This article seeks to fill this gap by describing and interpreting the establishment of a family planning service in Northern Ireland from the 1950s onwards. The distinctive religious, social, political and cultural situation in the province ensured that the manner in which clinics were established and the issues and difficulties that were faced differed from those elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland provides a valuable case-study of how local and regional differences influenced the establishment and growth of family planning services.

Kitchens and Kettles: Domestic Spaces, Ordinary Things, and Female Networks in Irish Abortion History, 1922–1949

“…Abortion was criminalized and contraception either forbidden or difficult to access; censorship prevented the dissemination of information about fertility control. 10 Women nevertheless attempted abortions. Because we do not know how many abortions were attempted or carried out, engaging in an accurate statistical analysis of illegal abortion in early twentieth-century Ireland is impossible.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2008

“…Some psychiatrists viewed homosexuality as a disease to be cured, while other experts disagreed. Moving across the Irish Sea, McCormick discusses the way that Northern Ireland's unique political and religious sensitivities affected the development of family planning provision between 1950 and 1974. McCormick posits that local and regional differences are needed to explain spatial differences observed in the establishment and growth of family planning provision.…”