1. Caroline Merula Deys was a British family planning doctor and later general practitioner.
15 Facts About Caroline Deys
1. 2.
Caroline Deys won a key case against a General Medical Council complaint in 1972 that had been motivated by her work on legalising abortion in the UK.
3.
Caroline Deys performed around 4750 vasectomies in the 1970s, when she was the only female doctor specialising in the procedure in Europe.
4.
Caroline Deys's father was killed in a bombing raid early in World War II.
5.
Caroline Deys attended St Paul's Girls' School, then studied medicine at Barts medical school in London, graduating in 1962.
6.
Caroline Deys worked with her husband on the successful campaign to legalise abortion in the UK, which led to the 1967 Abortion Act.
7.
Caroline Deys often involved her baby daughter in her work and demonstrated the safety of the oral contraceptive by giving a pill to her young child.
8.
Caroline Deys was defended by Robert Alexander and won her defence; the GMC revised its rules in response.
9.
Caroline Deys developed a theory relating contraceptive choice to cultural factors around gender.
10.
Caroline Deys noted that men in more patriarchal cultures preferred forms of contraception controlled by the man, like the condom and vasectomies.
11.
Caroline Deys married Malcolm Potts in 1966, with whom she had two children.
12.
Caroline Deys taught first aid for St John's Ambulance and was made a Serving Sister of the Order of St John in 1987.
13.
Caroline Deys became a Reader in the Church of England.
14.
Caroline Deys was later a Rotarian, being awarded their Paul Harris medal.
15.
Caroline Deys died from complications caused by type 2 diabetes in the Whittington Hospital.