Bill Baird Fought for Unmarried
Women
If Baird hadn’t been in a
Harlem Hospital in 1963 as a mother of nine stumbled into the
corridor, covered with blood from a botched abortion, would he have become such
a strong advocate for birth
control and abortion? If he hadn’t
seen the coat hanger protruding from her uterus would
he have continued a quiet life? If she hadn’t died, would he have realized the
meaning of abortion gone wrong?
If he gets the milk for free,
he won’t buy the cow. Growing up in middle
class 1950s New England,
that was the mantra: no sex before marriage. My mother wasn’t happy with my
response, “But men test drive cars.” I was watched much more closely; my
curfews were tighter.
Good girls
waited for marriage. Writer Marilyn French said that a “factory-fresh hymen”
could increase the value in the marriage market.
The movie Splendor in the Grass (1961) dealt with
sexual tension of high school lovers with only sadness.
Of course,
some girls did have sex and got caught. They had to leave school
before getting a high school diploma.
If they were lucky they married the father, although
many of those
teenage marriages floundered. The slang was “the shotgun wore white.”
Others
disappeared for a short time to “help an aunt” or some other excuse,
sacrificing a year of school. They returned and never discussed their year
away.
A friend
of mine, a Salvation Army Officer, headed a home for unwed mothers. She told of
girls taking their babies to the parking lot to hand them over to the adopting
parents, leaving a hole in the girls’ lives.
In some
cases, the child had a better life, but I’ve heard enough stories of adoptions
gone wrong to know that is not a magic answer. An adoptive mother may or may
not turn out to be a good mother the same way a natural mother may or may not
be a good mother.
As to
abortion, most of us didn’t know what it was when we were in high school. It
was only in college that we learned. More than one young woman went to the back
rooms of Boston or used the Clergy Consultation Service (CCS) and traveled out of state
or out of the country
for a safe abortion.
What we
didn’t know was that our grandmothers had practiced abortion as a method of
birth control.
Birth
control information was almost impossible to obtain. Even when I became engaged
in 1962, I could not get any information from my family
doctor. As a devout Catholic,
he wouldn’t give it to me even
after I was married. I tried asking a local Jewish doctor who told me to come
back after I was married. I didn’t have the nerve to try another doctor before
I eloped.
Without Bill Baird, Unmarried Women Wouldn’t Have Birth Control!
I knew of Bill Baird. I saw
him on the news more than once as he was being arrested. He was at
demonstrations. At one time, I was in
the studio audience when he appeared on a panel of a local Boston program.
As I was
starting research for this book, I hoped he was still living so I could speak
with him. He was. Wikipedia provided a link. I emailed him. He emailed me back.
Despite
his major sight problems, we worked together on an email interview where he
talked about the bad old days.
If Baird
hadn’t been in a Harlem Hospital in 1963 as a mother of nine stumbled into the
corridor, covered with blood from a botched abortion, would he have become such
a strong advocate for birth control and abortion? If he hadn’t seen the coat
hanger protruding from her uterus would he have continued a quiet life? If she hadn’t died, would he have realized
the meaning of abortion gone
wrong?
He was at the hospital that day as a representative of Emko, a birth control
foam. Baird did witness the event and became known as
the “father” of the birth control and abortion-rights movement.
Born 30 June 1932, he grew up in Brooklyn, one of six children in a devout
Lutheran
family.
His sister Louise’s death, at age nine, influenced him, shaking his Lutheran faith. Years
later, it caused him to tell
an audience member who said they were praying for his seriously ill grandson
that only doctors could help.
He was challenged when a man told him illness
in his family was retribution for his work. It shook him, but intellectually he knew that cancer is caused by cell
mutation, not the actions of a relative.
Baird
earned his undergraduate degree in 1955 from Brooklyn College. Although he
originally wanted to be a doctor, he had to decide between continuing at New
York Medical College and supporting his family, which included three children.
His family won over career.
Breaking the Law for a Greater Good
Baird traveled in a dilapidated truck converted into a mobile
counseling center that was named the
Plan Van. From it he distributed birth control information in the poor neighborhoods of New York City.
He was arrested when he arrived
with his Plan Van in 1965 in Hempstead, New York. The arrest ultimately led to a lightening
of the birth control laws.
After Roe v. Wade, Baird
founded the first abortion referral
services in that city. He spoke
about his clinic. “In 1964 I also established an above-ground clinic in
Hempstead. Women from all over the United States came to the clinic.”
One newspaper said his clinics
were filled, often staying open until after
midnight to handle the requests of desperate women.
The Washington Post did a story about
those women in 1969, stating, ‘It was 3 a.m. in the morning until the last patient
saw Baird.” He counseled them and made sure they had referrals to qualified physicians so that
they would not take a knitting needle or coat hanger to try to self-abort or go
to a quack for a back-alley abortion.”
Many years
later in November 1979, after Roe v. Wade,
his clinic, one of three opened, was fire bombed. The culprit, Peter Burkin,
was sentenced to two years in a mental hospital.
None of the
50 people inside the clinic was hurt, thanks to anti-terrorism training. Baird,
knowing the potential of violence
to which abortion
clinics can be subjected, wrote and distributed the first self-defense
manuals against terrorism for clinics.
The
interference by government at all levels into women’s wombs can go beyond an
invasion of privacy, which is serious enough. The New Jersey Commissioner of
Welfare wanted to jail unwed mothers for fornication as late as 1966.
Being arrested
became almost normal
for Baird. One of the most outrageous arrests was in 1971
when he was giving a lecture to the National
Organization for Women
(NOW). Because there was a baby in the audience, he was
accused of endangering the infant’s morals. The mother was arrested too. I
could not determine from sources if the baby was also arrested.
A Watershed Moment
for Birth Control
Availability
The year was 1967. The date 6 April. Encouraged by Boston
University students to challenge the Massachusetts law forbidding providing
contraception to unmarried people, Baird not only gave a
lecture, he handed a condom and contraceptive foam to a 19-year old woman
student. His arrest was immediate for “crimes against chastity.”
At that
time, only doctors and pharmacists could provide this information (but only to
married people).
The
Massachusetts Supreme Court said that Baird had a right to lecture under the
First Amendment but the prohibition of distribution of contraceptives stood.
Baird appealed for a federal writ of habeas corpus, which was denied.
The next step was heard before
the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which dismissed
the action that the prohibition infringed on the human rights of unmarried
couples under the Fourteenth Amendment. Baird won.
Sheriff
Thomas Eisenstadt of Suffolk County, Massachusetts was not satisfied and
appealed saying that Baird lacked “standing” because he was not a single person
nor was he an authorized distributor.
The Supreme
Court disagreed. On 22 March 1972 in the Eisenstadt
v. Baird ruling, it became legal for unmarried people to have the same
rights as married couples for contraception information.
The decision was used in Roe v. Wade and
many other cases.
“If the
right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual to be free
from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as to whether to bear or beget a child,”
Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. wrote.
There were two other Supreme Court victories, Baird v. Bellotti I (1976) and Baird v.
Bellotti II (1979),
giving minors the right to abortion without
parental consent.
Baird was
called the Father of Abortion Rights by Georgie Anne Geyer, a conservative
journalist and author. The title stuck.
Had he been prosecuted and sentenced for each of the 10,000
women he was said to have
helped get abortions, he would have spent eternity in jail.
Baird
continued to fight as women’s reproductive rights were threatened. In 2006 he
wrote Governor Mitt Romney: “Had I not challenged Massachusetts' archaic
birth-control laws (something that the state legislature at that time would not
do), it would still be a felony in this state. I was sentenced to prison for
three months for giving a speech to 2,500 Boston University students in a
deliberate challenge of that law.
No Religion Has the Right to Impose
Its Beliefs on Others
Baird’s statements and his activities appeared in many publications.
“I was not
hiding but was out in the open. I led the first march ever against the Catholic
Church’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The New York Times reported on March 13, 1967 in ‘Marchers Favor
Abortion Reform’ when I said to the crowd of marchers, within the shadows of
St. Patrick’s, ‘I say no religion has the right to impose its brand of morality
on those of other religions.’
“Mr. Baird,”
the article stated,
“standing behind the lectern, drew the loudest
cheer when he said that the
Parents Aid Society was arranging for an abortion referral service that would
furnish women with the names, addresses, telephone numbers and fees of
physicians who would perform the operation.” Baird told me Sepia magazine’s July 1967 issue
carried a four-page feature article “on my helping women get illegal abortions with
my phone number on the cover.”
“Coronet magazine did a cover story on
my work in 1969 about my helping women to get illegal abortions. My clinic was located at 130 Main Street in Hempstead. In the window was an
eight-foot sign that read, ‘Legalize Abortion.’”
Baird spoke on radio,
television, college campuses and other venues.
He is proud of what he accomplished but realizes there
are still problems
that have nothing to do with attempts
to outlaw abortion. “I have worked
closely with women who came to me from
almost every state in this country, many from Canada, South America and other
areas, to obtain abortions. I continue to refer women every week to abortion
clinics. Unfortunately, they are often turned away due to not having
insurance or not qualifying for Medicaid.”
Awards and Recognition
Some decry Baird’s work, such
as the priest at the Immaculate Conception Church in Marlborough, Massachusetts
who refused to baptize a baby because its mother would not denounce Baird. A
more compassionate priest, Joseph O’Rourke, a board member for Catholics for a
Free Choice, did the baptism.
On the other hand, many organizations have recognized Baird’s work:¨
- 1985, Freedom of Speech Award, American Atheists—“For his continuing efforts
of disseminate birth control information”
- 1987, National Abortion
Rights Action League,
Ohio—“For his unwavering commitment to reproductive freedom
- 1989, Man of the Year, The Nebraska Coalition for Women—“A pioneer and an activist
in the fight for reproductive rights”
- 1989, Certificate of Distinction, National
Organization for Women—“For outstanding leadership for women’s rights”
- 1997, Distinguished Alumnus
Award, Faculty of Brooklyn College of CUNY
- 1997, Reproductive Rights
Pioneer, National Organization for Women New York
- 1998, Bill Baird Eternal Vigilance Award, Brown University, American
Civil Liberties Union
- 1999, Certificate of Appreciation, Legal Association of Women at
Brooklyn Law School—“For his many contributions and valiant efforts in
the public interest”
- 2000, The NARAL Courage
Award, Oklahoma Affiliate of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights
Action—“For his many contributions and valiant efforts in the public interest”
Posts
