Crusader for Sex Education

Elise Ottesen-Jensen broke with her conservative family and became an influential social reformer in 1923. This book chronicles her leap to prominence. Beginning as a family planning field worker in Sweden, she quickly gained respect from the medical community for keeping abreast with sexological research and safe, reliable contraceptive practice. By the 1940s, her grass-roots organization helped to introduce sex education instruction in the public schools and fought for liberal abortion and homosexuality legislation. After World War II, Ottesen-Jensen promoted the spread of family planning internationally, most notably by working with Margaret Sanger, Lady Rama Rau, and others to found and build the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The importance of bringing truthful sex education messages to youth was her most persistent theme.