Lucien Neuwirth

Born in 1924, he joined the French Resistance in 1940 and was arrested, he later escaped through Spain.[1] He was in London in 1944, where he discovered birth control which was then banned from France.[2] He joined the paratroopers and fought in Brittany, Belgium and the Netherlands where he miraculously survived a firing squad in 1945.[1]

After the war, he joined the Rally of the French People and was elected in Saint-Étienne city council.[2] During his terms, he learned how many couple problems were caused by an unwanted birth.[1] As a member of the military reserve force, he spent some time in Algiers around 1958 and helped in the negotiations which led to the end of the French Fourth Republic.[1]

He was elected to the French National Assembly in 1958.[3] With some help from the French birth control movement (Mouvement français du planning familial), he wrote a law draft to legalize birth control in 1966.[1] He faced a violent opposition in his political family, notably the government, and successfully pleaded the case to the general De Gaulle himself.[1] The Neuwirth Law was finally voted with left-wing support[2] on 19 December 1967.[4]

He stayed in the National Assembly until the pink wave of 1981, and was elected to the Senate in 1983.[3] His main topic in his last years was palliative care, for which he supported two laws in 1995[1] and in 1999.[2] He died on 26 November 2013.[1]