The Trial of Marie Stopes

The sensational libel action brought by Dr. Marie Stopes against Dr. Halliday Sutherland in 1923 not only created leagel history, but highlighted her work as the pioneer of birth control in a blaze of publicity that even now, over forty years later, has not been extinguished. The case had repercussions all over the world and still has for those coutries and continets where the population problem is a source of grave anxiety. A record of the case has never before been available to the public or even the law societies. But for Marie Stopes, would we have ever had the Pill? It is a moot point. Few people realise that two years before her death in the 1958 this dynamic and remarkable scientist was working on a birth control clinic in the British Empore at her own expense. This was the venture, plus her sociological books Married Love and Wise Parenthood, which triggered off the Stopes v. Sutherland battle, not only in the High Court but also in the Court of Appeal and finally in the House of Lords, where she suffered defeat. Yet was it defeat? The case and the notoriety it received served to bring about a social revolution, which might otherwise have been delayed for many years. It could therefore be regarded in another sense as a triumphal success. (Inside cover)