The term birth control was popularized by Margaret Sanger. There are two different versions of how the term came to be used. In one version, Sanger tells how a few friends and supporters of the Woman Rebel, her radical monthly publication, gathered together in her apartment one evening to select a distinctive name. In this early version of the origin of the term, Sanger herself in her book My Fight for Birth Control claimed she coined it:
In her autobiography, Sanger was less possessive of the term, although the same evening meeting was recounted: “We tried population control, race control, and birth rate control. Then someone suggested, ‘Drop the rate.’ Birth control was the answer; we knew we had it.”
The term first appeared in the fourth issue of the Woman Rebel in June 1914 and was used by Sanger and her followers thereafter.
