Abortion charity Marie Stopes changes its name to distance itself from its founder's links to eugenics and Nazis
- Charity is dropping name of woman who created Britain's first birth control clinic
- The charity will instead be known as MSI Reproductive Choices from today
- Stopes was advocate for sterilisation of people considered unfit for parenthood
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Abortion service Marie Stopes International is dropping the name of the woman who created Britain's first birth control clinic because of her advocacy of eugenics.
The charity will instead be known as MSI Reproductive Choices from today.
Miss Stopes, who lived from 1880 to 1958, was an advocate for the sterilisation of people considered unfit for parenthood and was a member of the Eugenics Society.MSI Reproductive Choices said these views, 'though not uncommon at that time, are now rightly discredited', and directly oppose the charity's values of choice and autonomy.
The charity said the name change sends 'a clear signal that we neither adhere to nor condone' her beliefs around eugenics.
Miss Stopes was said to have supported Adolf Hitler and in 1939 sent the Nazi dictator a book of her poems enclosed with a letter saying: 'Dear Herr Hitler, love is the greatest thing in the world.'
Her views on eugenics were also promoted by the Nazis in Germany, and in 1935 she attended a conference in Berlin to promote 'population science'.
Abortion service Marie Stopes International (pictured in Leeds) is dropping the name of the woman who created Britain's first birth control clinic because of her advocacy of eugenics
Miss Stopes (pictured), who lived from 1880 to 1958, was an advocate for the sterilisation of people considered unfit for parenthood and was a member of the Eugenics Society
Miss Stopes set up Britain's first birth control clinic in 1921 in Holloway, north London, in the face of medical and religious opposition.
The Marie Stopes Mothers' Clinic later moved to Whitfield Street, in central London, giving women advice and contraception.
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