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Name: Margaret Sanger
Lifetime: September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966
What She’s Known For: Margaret Sanger worked her entire career to make birth control mainstream in American society.
Why We Love Her: Contraceptives, birth control, the pill, Planned Parenthood – we have access to all of these sexual health tools because Sanger went head-to-head with the United States government to defend a woman’s right to use contraceptives. Before that, the government had outlawed any information about contraceptives in public because it was “too obscene.” Sanger loudly proclaimed that every woman should be “the absolute mistress of her own body,” and to do this she sought to make sex safer and even more pleasurable for women.
Fun Fact: Sanger found a loophole in the law and opened up the first family planning and birth control clinic. The government, not happy at being defied, ordered Sanger’s arrest. A few years later, she opened the first legal birth control clinic, fully staffed by female doctors and social workers.
