Marie Carmichael Stopes (October 15, 1880 - October 2, 1958) was a Scottish author, paleobotanist, campaigner for women's rights and pioneer in the field of birth control. She studied coal, coal balls, and the collection of Glossopteris (seed ferns). She also edited the newsletter Birth Control News which gave explicit practical advice. Her sex manual Married Love, which she wrote while legally a virgin, was controversial and influential, while her book, Wise Parenthood, was written before she'd become a parent. Stopes was strongly against the termination of a pregnancy once it had started. Stopes died in 1958 from breast cancer. She was 77 years old.