The 20th century was a defining era for family planning. Women took control of their fertility in large numbers for the first time, as medical advances and social and cultural changes made family planning readily accessible in many  parts of the world. 

 

Pioneers set the movement in motion. Marie Stopes herself opened the UK's first family planning clinic in central London in 1921. Then the arrival of the contraceptive pill and the modern intrauterine device (IUD)  around 1960 ushered in the modern era of contraception.