Kära Lis Asklund (1990)

Lis Asklund (1913-2006) was a Swedish sex educator, television and radio presenter, and author. From 1933 to 1936 she was trained as a nurse with the Swedish Red Cross at Sabbatsberg hospital, before going on to spend a year in London with the Florence Nightingale International Foundation, where she studied a broad range of subjects related to sociology, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and healthcare. The first law legalising abortion in Sweden had been introduced under the Abortion Act of 1938, however this only allowed abortion under very limited circumstances. This had led to women seeking dangerous illegal back-street abortionists as they were not able to have legal abortions. The feminist journalist Elise Ottesen-Jensen approached Lis Asklund in 1940 to establish an office for the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education where women could go for advice and could therefore be steered away from dangerous abortionists.