Activist and Humanitarian
In 1953, Foss gave birth to a child with Down's Syndrome who later died at a young age. She is credited with raising public awareness about disabled individuals, founding, among other things the vacation resort "Solgården" ("Hacienda del Sol") in Alicante, Spain.
She survived breast cancer in 1971 and wrote a candid account of her experience. She was a strong supporter of gay rights and an outspoken critic of the Christian Democratic Party owing to its opposition to gay marriage and gay rights. She also questioned the raison d'être of the party, maintaining that "religion and politics should not be mixed".
Read more about this topic: Wenche Foss
Famous quotes containing the words activist and, activist and/or humanitarian:
“...I was confronted with a virile idealism, an awareness of what man must have for manliness, dignity, and inner liberty which, by contrast, made me see how easy living had made my own group into childishly unthinking people. The Negro’s struggles and despairs have been like fertilizer in the fields of his humanity, while we, like protected children with all our basic needs supplied, have given our attention to superficialities.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 19 (1962)
“The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that positions be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one’s contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time.”
—Angela Davis (b. 1944)
“Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)