Remembering May McGee: The ‘hero housewife’ who fought to make contraception legal in Ireland
In the early 1970s Mary ‘May’ and Seamus ‘Shay’ McGee were parents to four young children. On her second and third pregnancies, May had experienced complications so severe that her doctor advised that her life would be in danger if she had any more children.
The GP prescribed a diaphragm and spermicidal jelly to help prevent pregnancy. These had to be imported and were seized by customs with the couple told that if they attempted to import contraceptive devices again, they could be prosecuted.
The couple went to the High Court in 1972 in an attempt to overturn a 1935 ban on the importation of…
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