Women's Reproductive Rights Champion, Bill Baird, Speaks in Rochester

Bill Baird came and spoke at an event on the January 22, 2009 celebrating the anniversary of Roe v Wade. Roe v Wade was the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the first trimester of a pregnancy. Although I am a long time pro-choice activist, I am embarrassed to say I did not know much about Bill Baird. I would like to share with you what I learned.

Bill Baird has been fighting for women’s reproductive rights for 46 years. Baird spoke about the incident that changed his life and impassioned him to take up the fight for women’s reproductive rights. He spoke about an incident at a hospital, while coordinating research, he heard a woman scream. He ran into the corridor and found a young African American woman covered from the waist down with blood and part of a coat hanger protruding from her uterus. He caught her as she collapsed and held her as she bled to death and listened to her concern for her 8 children that would be left without her. This incident started him on his quest to change the laws and attitudes that forced women into situations like that of the woman he saw die. His achievements have been pivotal.

Outraged that this woman and others, predominately low income women, were unable to access birth control information , contraceptives or safe abortions, he started giving away contraceptive foam and condoms to women in need. He eventually started the “Plan Van” which traveled to low-income neighborhoods in NYC for the purpose of disseminate information on birth control and providing contraceptives to the people.

In 1965, he was arrested in New York for challenging anti-birth control law 1142 by lecturing out of his "Plan Van" about birth control. The law barred the dissemination of information or devices for the prevention of conception, thus information about birth control and birth control devises. This challenge resulted in the law being changed and birth control became legal in New York.

In the1971 landmark case in the Supreme Court, Baird v Eisenbradt, birth control was legalized for unmarried women and the case set the precedent for a woman’s right to privacy, which led to the Roe decision. Bill Baird's two other U.S. Supreme Court cases Baird v. Bellotti I (1976) and Baird v. Bellotti II (1979), established the rights of minors to obtain an abortion without parental veto. The Court declared, "The Bill of Rights is not for adults only."

In 1970, MA laws prohibited all sexual acts except face to face intercourse and in addition prohibited taking the "Lord's" name in vain. I have to say i was not totally clear if it was just illegal to use the "Lord's" name when in the act of intercourse or in general. Baird introduced 4 bills in the MA House, which called for the repeal of the laws prohibiting unnatural and lascivious acts acts with another person , fornication, blasphemy and crimes against nature. Had the laws been repealed, the impact would have affected the straight and queer citizens of MA.

During his activism, he has been arrested 8 times in 5 different states, has won 3 Supreme Court decisions and greatly influenced another Supreme Court decision. He established the nation’s first above ground birth control and abortion referral clinic in 1964, helping thousands get birth control and safe abortions. He established the first abortion slush fund on a college campus in 1965 and was instrumental in changing laws that limited women to information and contraceptives. Due to his activism he lost his job at EMKO, a birth control manufacturer, was shot at on two different occasions and had his clinic firebombed by terrorists.

Baird has been a major influence in changing the laws and attitudes affecting women’s reproductive freedom and has not retired yet. He has been outspoken against the Catholic Church and other religious institutions that try to impose their morality onto the society at large. He can be seen carrying a 10 foot wooden cross to protest outside churches with the words "Free Women from the Cross of Oppression" stamped into it. He also stated that this is a "holy war" and we can not sit back and relish in our achievements or the clocks could be turned back.

This writer would like to thank Bill Baird for his lifetime commitment to advancing this human rights issue, women’s reproductive rights and his continued work to ensure that these rights are never lost.

You can get more information by visiting Bill Baird’s website at www.prochoiceleague.org.