How did children become ideal children in the 20th century? How did offspring become something that was consciously planned? This book examines the history of family planning in the Federal Republic of Germany in a transnational approach. It first looks at the history of birth control in the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism, then the development of family planning in the USA. In its main part, it analyzes the debates about sterilization and the birth control pill in the 1960s, the women's movement of the 1970s and the reform of abortion from the perspective of proponents and opponents.