Margaret Sanger

Born in 1879, Margaret Sanger was a nurse with a much different story. Initially a nurse for the underprivileged in New York's Lower East Side, Sanger began to realize the dramatic effects of unplanned pregnancies in these destitute conditions. She left her nursing work in order to promote the use of birth control and give women everywhere the ability to make their own reproductive decisions.

Though battled from the beginning, her work finally paid off with he formation of the World Population Conference in 1927 in which the effects of overpopulating were discussed with experts from around the globe. Sanger would later form the Planned Parenthood Federation in 1942, which still stands today to educate women about their reproductive health and choices for family planning.