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On one level
Margaret Sanger's
achievement was
a purely practical
one: to open birth
control clinics in
the face of fierce
opposition from
the bureaucracy
and from self-
appointed moral
policemen. But
her real legacy
is the idea that
a woman's body
is hers to control,
that she has the
right to take
control of her
own fertility
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Working as a 
nurse in New 
York's Lower East 
Side, Margaret 
Sanger became 
distressed at the 
link she saw
between unwanted
pregnancies, back- 
street abortions,
poverty, and
child mortality.
But under US law
it was "obscene"
to let women
have written
information about 
birth control
#
At the time, Europe had a slightly more liberal attitude to birth
control. Hoping to learn from European experience, Sanger left
the US, meeting campaigners such as British birth control
pioneer Marie Stopes
#
Returning to New 
York, Sanger 
opened a birth 
control and 
health clinic in 
Brooklyn. But the 
authorities closed 
it down and she 
was sentenced to 
thirty days in the 
workhouse for 
"causing a public 
nuisance". She 
was arrested 
eight times in her 
struggle for 
contraception and 
sex education
#
Margaret Sanger 
was concerned 
for the rights of 
women the world 
over. In 1927 she 
organised the 
first World 
Population 
Conference in 
Geneva and for 
the next three 
decades lectured 
as far afield as 
China and the
Far East
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