Like the birth-control activist of the early 20th century, Stevens believes women should have control over the number of children they have.

But unlike Sanger, Stevens apparently offered her advice to just one woman - a Latina mother of six rowdy kids climbing all over the Logan bus depot a few weeks ago. Stevens suggested the overwhelmed woman try a hormone patch.

"I didn't mean to be mean," says Stevens, a 76-year-old retired medical secretary. "Maybe this woman doesn't know how to use birth control. That was the only thing I had in mind."

It wasn't the first time Stevens and the woman had words.

She ended up charged with trespassing and was briefly banned from riding Cache Valley Transit Authority buses. Outside justice court this week, she said she'd be willing to serve time in jail to prove her point. But after a stern talking-to about appropriate bus bench conversation, the charges could be dropped.

"We need to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable and no one feels intimidated," says Todd Beutler, transit authority general manager.

Stevens is a clumsy heroine to champion in a politically correct world. She says what most of us are thinking. She speaks out loud things that are whispered - about welfare moms and polygamists and Mormons and Catholics and immigrants - between close friends and family (the ones who won't judge us). She's easy to label racist or senile. But maybe she's just a pragmatist.

The mother of one and grandmother of none worries about the world's population. She figures America's growing immigrant population will drain the country's resources. She quotes population statistics: 6.6 billion people in the world; nearly 80 million new babies added each year. And demographic studies: the higher a parent's education and income, the smaller the family.

"It's poor people who have child after child," she says. "If we could take care of them, that's fine. But these are children born into a world of need and want. It breaks my heart."

Planned Parenthood Director Karrie Galloway cringed when she heard about Stevens. Over the years, Galloway has mastered the soft voice and gentle demeanor that will be least threatening to conservative Utahns when she says "contraception."

Despite the backlash, Galloway says, the Logan woman has started a debate about family planning that Utah desperately needs to have.

"These types of comments can spring from nobody talking about family planning as an important public health issue," Galloway says. "It's taboo. We don't want to admit that family planning is good."

So for that, thank you, Mrs. Stevens.

walsh@sltrib.com