Helene Stöcker (* 13. November 1869 in Elberfeld (heute zu Wuppertal); † 24. Februar 1943 in New York) war eine deutsche Frauenrechtlerin, Pazifistin und Publizistin. Sie gründete 1905 den Bund für Mutterschutz (ab 1908 Deutscher Bund für Mutterschutz und Sesualreform), der sich für unverheiratete Mütter und ihre Kinder einsetzte. Aus Empörung über die positive Haltung der Kirchen zum Ersten Weltkrieg trat sie im Januar 1915 aus der Kirche aus.Stöcker was raised in a Calvinist household and attended a school for girls which emphasized rationality and morality. She moved to Berlin to continue her education and then she studied at the University of Bern, where she became one of the first German women to receive her doctorate. In 1905 she helped found the League for the Protection of Mothers (BfM, Bund für Mutterschutz), and she became the editor of the organization's magazine Mutterschutz (1905-1908) and then Die Neue Generation (1906–1932). In 1909, she joined Magnus Hirschfeld in successfully lobbying German parliament from including lesbian women in the law criminalizing. Stöcker's influential new philosophy, called the New Ethic, advocated the equality of illegitimate children, legalization of abortion, and education, all in the service of creating deeper relationships between men and women which would eventually achieve women's political and social equality.
During World War I and the Weimar period, Stöcker's interest shifted to activities in the peace movement. In 1921 in Bilthoven, together with Kees Boeke and Wilfred Wellock, she founded an organisation with the name Paco (the Esperanto word for peace) and later known as War Resisters' International (WRI) the "Internationale der Kriegsdienstgegner". She was also very active in the Weimar reform movement. The Bund für Mutterschutz sponsored a number of health clinics, which employed both lay and medical personnel, where women and men could go for contraception, marriage advice, and sometimes abortions and sterilization. From 1929 to 1932, she took one last stand for abortion rights. After a papal encyclical, the Casti connubii, issued on December 31, 1930 denounced without the intent to procreate, the radical reform movement collaborated with the Socialist and Communist parties to launch one final campaign against paragraph 218, which prohibited abortion. Stöcker added her iconic voice to a campaign that ultimately failed.
