Bill Baird and the Struggle for Abortion Rights in the USA

I was very interested to see that on the front of your issue “Abortion: women decide” [RHM 11(19) May 2002] you had a photograph of a large historical poster of the Parent’s Aid Society in New York. This organisation was founded and run for many years by one of the characters of the USA pro-choice movement — Bill Baird. It led to me ringing him after a number of years of being out of contact. He told me he was still active and picketing the anti-choice forces. He has also been invited to address the medical school staff at the local university. He railed against Bush’s attempts to introduce chastity and impose more severe restrictions on abortion.

Baird has achieved a great many things during his lifetime. Probably the most notable was his challenge in the 1960s to the Massachusetts state law which prohibited the provision of contraceptive devices to single people. The law was strange in that condoms were sold openly. However, this was justified on the grounds that they were sold as a preventative against venereal disease. Baird gave a can of foam to a teenage single student at Boston University in the presence of a number of police officers, who promptly arrested him, and in due course he was given a prison sentence. This he exploited to the greatest degree by having his wife parade outside the prison with his four small children, who wanted their daddy back. The case eventually wended its way to the US Supreme Court and in 1972 in the case of Baird v. Eisenstadt established the rights of individuals to use birth control on the grounds of privacy. It was argued that a couple were not an entity but two individuals who both had the right to ensure that the government did not interfere in matters so fundamental as the decision whether or not to have children. This decision was quoted six times in the 1973 Roe v. Wade judgement that legalised abortion in the USA. Later in Baird v. Bellotti, Baird went to the Supreme Court on two further occasions challenging the rights of states to restrict the rights of the under-18s. In the end, this led to states being able to impose some restrictions; however, a number of concessions were gained. I know of no other individual who has been to the US Supreme Court three times.

I taped an interview with Baird in 1969, and he told me that he had set up an underground network for abortion provision. He said he was usually able to get the doctor’s costs down from US$600 to around $300 but even at this level the cost of an abortion was about twice what it would be 15 years later. He told me he made women sign a statement as follows:

“I came to Bill Baird voluntarily seeking his abortion help. I am not connected to the Police Department. I was charged no fee and I do not hold him responsible for my actions.”

Baird’s challenge to the law became increasingly open and in 1967 an American black women’s magazine carried on its front page the statement “If you want an abortion, call 516-538-2626” ¹ He tells that he was imprisoned eight times in five states for birth control activities. However, he was never in trouble for illegal abortions, which he once told me was due to the fact that the local police used his services. Among the other things he has done was to organise the first abortion march from Time’s Square to St Patrick’s. Over the years he became the person the opponents of abortion, at least in New York, most regarded as their enemy. He also provoked the Catholic church into bizarre activities. In August 1974 the Boston Globe reported that a church had refused to allow a mother to have her daughter baptised because she had publicly supported him.

At one time he had three fertility centres on Long Island and in Boston. On a teaching exchange in 1977, I happened to end up living near his abortion clinic in Hempstead NY. My wife worked in his centre and I carried out research among the women who attended. In 1979 the centre was firebombed and was never restored, but for the first time in the USA the perpetrator of the bombing was arrested.

Although Baird has accomplished a great deal, when the history of the movement is written he is often downgraded or not mentioned at all. A number of reasons may be suggested for this. First, Baird is sometimes attacked by his own side. At one time he organised a “sit-in” at the headquarters of Planned Parenthood. He also picketed certain women’s groups whom he accused of sexism because they discriminated against him. Baird is not inclined to ignore things he thinks are wrong. Laurence Lader, who is also active in the US abortion movement, said that despite the fact that many within Planned Parenthood were outraged by Baird’s inflammatory tactics: “After each Baird hurricane, the movement made considerable progress. Each of his arrests affected the law in question. Each innovation — the mobile van, for example, with which he brought contraceptive and abortion information directly into ghetto areas — set a pattem that was finally followed elsewhere.”

I believe his positive role should be acknowledged and appreciated.

Legalise abortion demonstration, New York City, 1968