Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger (born Margaret Higgins, 1879 to 1966) was an American nurse, writer and sex educator who became the central organizer of the birth control movement in the United States. At a time when contraceptives and information about them were illegal across much of the country, she campaigned for their legalization after seeing the toll of repeated pregnancies and unsafe abortions on poor women she treated in New York City. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, was arrested eight times for defying laws on distributing contraceptive information, and built a network of clinics serving hundreds of thousands of patients. Her litigation and advocacy contributed to court rulings that widened legal access to contraception, including Griswold v. Connecticut. She founded organizations that grew into Planned Parenthood and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and in the early 1950s helped secure funding for the research that produced the first birth control pill. Her record is contested: she also embraced eugenic arguments for birth control, which remains a central point of criticism of her legacy.