This news report (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/this-day-in-history/ireland-allows-sale-of-contraceptives) tells me that contraceptives were illegal until 1985.
But this report(https://news.stanford.edu/pr/96/960214japanabort.html) says the pill was still illegal in 1996.
Any insight into the issue? I’m currently doing a research.
2 comments
The 1985 date is about condoms. They were illegal up until that date.
The pill was legally available in Ireland as a period regulator and some women definitely managed to access it for contraceptive purposes long before it was legal for that use. There’s a great article here looking at some of the early history of the pill in Ireland. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7120263/
Im not sure when Full legalisation of the pill actually happened – this article https://headstuff.org/topical/history-reproductive-rights-ireland/ claims 1993 and there was indeed an act passed that year on family planning but it wasn’t a straightforward act legalising the pill it was an act amending the previous legislation. You would need to have the patience to step through each previous act to understand how that 1993 act might have led to legalising the pill.
Contraceptives were legalized by a 1979 Act actually. Came into effect in 1980, I believe. Although that Act was highly restrictive in that it required a prescription to buy condoms. The 1985 Act liberalized the law, abolishing this requirement.