Margaret Sanger

American birth control activist who founded Planned Parenthood — a central figure in reproductive rights history whose legacy is complicated by her eugenics advocacy.

Birth control legalization: Sanger's decades-long campaign (starting 1914) to legalize contraception and make it accessible to women culminated in the founding of what became Planned Parenthood and legal victories that eventually led to Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). She opened the first U.S. birth control clinic in 1916. The complication: Sanger was also an enthusiastic eugenicist who advocated for limiting reproduction by immigrants and 'unfit' populations — her positive contribution to women's autonomy is entangled with advocacy for coercive eugenics that was used against minority communities.