orig. Margaret Higgins
born Sept. 14, 1879, Corning, N.Y., U.S.
died Sept. 6, 1966, Tucson, Ariz.
U.S. birth-control pioneer.
She practiced obstetrical nursing on New York's Lower East Side, where she noticed a relationship between poverty, uncontrolled fertility, and high rates of infant and maternal deaths. In 1914 she published The Woman Rebel (later Birth Control Reviews ), which was banned as obscene. She was arrested in 1916 for mailing birth-control literature and again when she opened the country's first birth-control clinic. Her legal appeals brought publicity and support to her cause, and the federal courts soon granted physicians the right to prescribe contraceptives. In 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League. She soon took her campaign worldwide, organizing the first World Population Conference (1927) and becoming the founding president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (1953).
Margaret Sanger.
By courtesy of Planned Parenthood-Federation of America, Inc.