Madeleine Simms (née Zimmermann: 6 September 1930 – 3 October 2011) was an Austrian-born British social campaigner and one of the architects of the Abortion Act 1967.
[1] She was born Madeleine Zimmerman in Vienna to a Jewish family and they moved to London where she was educated at St Paul's Girls' School (at the same time as Shirley Williams) and then read Moral Philosophy and English Literature at Aberdeen University.
[3] After the birth of her first child (Nick) in 1959, Simms discovered abortion was illegal in the UK.
She was also the deputy director of the Institute for Social Studies in Medical Care, London.
For a period, she was seconded to the Department of Health research management division, writing articles, pamphlets and reports.