Guttmacher was born in 1898 to Rabbi Adolf (Adolph) Guttmacher, and Laura (Oppenheimer) Guttmacher, German Jewish emigrants. His twin brother, Manfred Guttmacher, was an advisor to the Baltimore City's Supreme Bench as a psychiatrist. Their older sister, Dorothy Emma Guttmacher, owned the Tudor Flower Shops at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Alan married Leonore Gidding in 1926 and together they raised three daughters, Ann (Loeb), Sally (Holtzman), and Susan (Green).[citation needed]
Guttmacher was a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the Hopkins Medical School. He served as Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology and was appointed Obstetrician and Gynecologist-In-Chief at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York for approximately ten years. In 1962, ten years after moving to New York, he became president of the Planned Parenthood Federation. He extended this endeavor by founding the Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians which included scientists and medical practitioners. From 1964 to 1968, he served as Chairman of the Medical Committee of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Guttmacher was also a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, the American Fertility Society, New York Academy of Medicine, and the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.[3]
