Setting women free deserves a stamp

It all began in 1921, at 61 Marlborough Road, when the UK's first family planning centre opened its doors. It was a radical move at a time when women were exhausted by serial pregnancies that also condemned families to poverty. Enraged by the pointless suffering, Stopes set up the Mothers Clinic.

On a basic level it's thanks to Stopes and her passionate belief in women controlling their own fertility that people like me have been able to enjoy full careers. But she wasn't a po-faced feminist either.

An early career move was to publish the first sex manual, Married Love. Two thousand eager readers instantly snapped it up, even though Stopes was condemned by churches of all religions. It's a short leap from Married Love to Sex and the City, or at least, sex without consequences.

Sex, though, does have consequences, and not all of them welcome. Twenty years ago, in Scotland, there was no such thing as an affordable private abortion. So girls who couldn't work the system, and couldn't go through with a pregnancy, would take the bus to London and visit Marie Stopes.

In southern Ireland, where abortion is still outlawed, friends of mine who were caught out did whip-rounds for a fare and the cost of the operation. Hundreds still come over every year. To these women, Marie Stopes is a lifeline.

Unfortunately, Stopes's enthusiasm for family planning spilled over into a zealotry for population control. She felt strongly enough to write to Hitler, enclosing a book of her love poems, and called for sterilisation of those unfit to be mothers.

You can see why people, primarily churchmen, are outraged that she should be celebrated at all. Yet this new anger against her misjudgments feels contrived coming from people who have fought a bitter war against her work progressive or otherwise all along.

Stopes's more extreme views are clearly unacceptable now. But to deny her recognition because of them is to fail to understand what she meant and means to women. Her contribution is enormous. She gave us careers and guilt-free sex. In my book, that's good enough reason to be on a stamp.