The First Amendment; Bill Baird

The Eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University now presents The First Amendment and a Free People, a weekly examination of civil liberties and the media in the 1970s. The host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Rubin. [Rubin] On this edition my guest is Bill Baird. The United Press International referred to Bill Baird as the father of the abortion movement, or the abortion rights movement. He first got into this interest of working on the right of women in this regard because he saw something terrible happen while he was working in a related field as a clinical director for a drug company. He happened to see a woman who was very much maimed by a self-imposed abortion with a coat hanger. Bill, why don't you start there and tell us about the incipience of your

interest in this work? [Bill Baird] I sure will. First of all I want to say I'm very happy to share today with you because the issue is an important one. And what had occurred several years back, 15 years to be exact. I had heard the screams of a woman who was pregnant for the ninth time, a woman who was on welfare. And I raced out into the hallway and she literally collapsed in my arms at one of the hospitals I had been teaching at and she had taken an eight inch piece of wire coat hanger and wrapped the end with adhesive tape. And in those days the idea was if you can insert a coat hanger into the uterus and just scratch the wall to induce bleeding, a physician to quote "save the life of the woman" would perform the abortion. However, the tragedy of this case, Bernie, is that she slipped and went through the wall into her bowel and she hemmorrhaged to death, and it angered me. Here was a citizen who was denied, not only the right to an abortion, but by the law of the state of New York at that time, she could not even have access to birth control. So way back in 1965 I challenged the New York law. I bought a mobile clinic and I drove

from Holland to Bedford-Stuyvesant and different poor areas. When I came to Hempstead Long Island I suddenly was surrounded by police, dragged out of the van, handcuffed, charged with indecent exposure of obscene objects, namely birth control and abortion devices. And I faced a one year prison term, and I ultimately got the law changed. The following year, in 1966, the city of Freehold, New Jersey jailed me for 20 days for teaching birth control to poor people, again with the idea of showing devices. But the thing that probably angered me more than anything else was in your good ole community of Boston University, I was arrested before 2000 young people for publicly showing birth control and abortion devices, but also giving out one package of foam to an unmarried woman, and I was ultimately convicted and given a three month prison term as a felon, and I served, as you well know, over a month in the Charles Street Prison where I chased rats out of my cell and picked bugs out of my food. But my dream was that if by some miracle I could get this case before the U.S. Supreme Court

and they agreed with me, it would overturn every law on birth control and ultimately change the laws on abortion. [Rubin] Now you did get it before the United States Supreme Court, perhaps you want to go on with that and say what happened? [Baird] Well, in 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court said a very famous statement, they said if the right of privacy means anything, it is a right of the individual to be free, and the keyword was the individual to be free to make this decision. And that did indeed legalize birth control and in 1973 it was quoted six times in overturning the abortion law. So I was tremendously thrilled with that and more recently we've been battling for the rights of teenagers to have abortions because many people still believe that teenagers are chattel or property owned by the parent. [Bernard Rubin] Now before we get into that Bill let me ask you about your most recent adventure, if you want to put it that way, in Chicago. [Baird] Well Chicago's a fair city as they call it but it's certainly got some backward thinking police officers. Last year I was down there in June picketing the anti-abortion group. And I've always believed that the streets belong to we the people. And I've

never sought a permit in all my years of picketing nor will I ever because I maintain the streets belong to we the people. However the Chicago Police didn't agree with me. They said since 1968 no one's been allowed to picket there because of the so-called violence of the anti-war demonstrators and they threatened me physically and they also threatened me with arrest if I did not move. So I left. I went to the American Civil Liberties Union and they were gracious enough to agree with me. And they took the case and they went to a court room and we got a restraining order. And yet the police again harassed us the next day when we picketed. And we ultimately did go to court and just a few weeks ago I was very happy to find out that the Chicago police now said "we publicly apologize, that people can now peacefully picket in the city of Chicago, and Bill Baird here's a check for two thousand five hundred dollars for damages." And I made a public promise, as much as I personally need the money, I gave back into our movement for poor people to have abortions, so the Chicago Police financed the very thing they were

trying to stop, which was the right of people to hear and learn why abortion should be made legal. [Rubin] Now let me ask you a couple of questions based upon a couple of presumptions that I'm going to present to you. First, in regard to freedom of speech the abortion fight and the anti-abortion fight is perhaps one of the most sensitive in that it sensitizes more people than any other thing I can think of. People feel very deeply about it in terms of their emotion, some people think very deeply about it in terms of morals, some people think very deeply about it in terms of religion. And I think that we are talking about both sides of the issue for every one of those criteria. You feel very very much concerned about the right of women to have these abortions. You have been dealing for the last 15 years trying to get this message across. How free have you found the mass media, or how responsive have you found the mass media to your

message and to the story that you're trying to get over? [Baird] Well, if I can tell you in stages, at the beginning when I was sort of pioneering this work there were many TV shows and network shows that I did because nobody else would talk about it. Nobody else was really actively fighting to legalize abortion. However in the last several years I found the media's done a strange thing. They now seek women such as Betty Friedan and others to speak out on abortion, and they say "well Bill Baird, you're a man." And that always angers me because, forgetting I'm a man for a moment, I don't have to be gay to speak out for gay rights. I certainly don't have to be black to speak out for black people's rights, and I certainly don't have to be a woman to speak out for women's rights. All these issues to me are under the banner of human liberation. So concerning some of the media I would say that they've got their own sexist hang ups they've got to work through. But in this particular state since this only occurred the other day, finding the so-called liberal press even

like The Globe, that columnist after columnist has decided to have open season on Bill Baird, either I am the devil or I'm evil. And what really troubles me is that it's bad enough that they want to attack me, which is something that perhaps I can live with. But what they're really trying to do is, by discrediting me in their own eyes and the eyes of the public, that they think that they're discrediting the movement and there's no way they're going to do that. [Rubin] Suppose I suppose I throw that back at you and say while your work is well recognized one of the achievements perhaps has been that it has become something on the table for many many leaders and the Right to Life movement so-called has created many leaders. Your Right to Abortion movement has created many leaders. Now you are one of many. Does this make it more difficult for you when somebody says "well perhaps Bill Baird was all right in the early days or perhaps a man might speak on it, but after all in an age of women's liberation who should we get now but

perhaps women?" [Bill Baird] But who do I fight the most? Women. Give you for instance. Who ran for president United States on the issue of making abortion a crime? Ellen McCormack, a woman. Who heads a National Right to Life group? A woman by the name of Mildred Jefferson. Anita Bryant, Phyllis Schlafly, I can name you host after host of people many of whom I've debated personally but the vast majority of them are indeed women. [Bernard Rubin] Have you encouraged any men to leadership roles in this area? [Baird] I can't encourage anybody to a leadership role. [Rubin] I'm saying I'm saying by the activities that you have been engaged in in the last 15 years. [Baird] All I can do is see that people perceive me whatever way they do and those who agree with me will stand up and fight and those who don't, won't, or else the others will just sit and watch and tragically that's what most of us are doing. Most of us are watchers. Most of us, in fact if I challenge this audience, how many of you honestly in the last year have even written one letter, one postcard to a legislator and said "I backed Bill Baird" or "I think abortion is a woman's right." I'd almost bet

my life the vast majority have not done it. In contrast the anti-abortion people who are out there by the thousands because they have an organized force, essentially the Roman Catholic Church's political arm. When we talk to you about the dangers, at least as I view it, to the First Amendment, we talk about freedom of speech. We also talk about the issue of religion. One of most frightening things happening in this nation, and most of us are asleep on this, is that there's an effort to amend the Constitution. Thirteen states have passed this so-called Right to Life Amendment that says this "from the moment of conception a person exists." Now that's a religious dogma. That's essentially the Roman Catholic Church's philosophy. [Rubin] Well but when you say essentially religious dogma, you wouldn't circumscribe the right of people to to maintain their faith as they see it. Roman Catholics, Orthodox Jews, Protestants or anyone else. [Baird] I have no battle with anybody who wants to their privacy their home their church wherever say "look I as a Roman Catholic believe abortion is murder and a pencil-dot egg is a person"

or if you're a Jehova's Witness that "blood transfusions are immoral and I would sooner die than have a blood transfusion." Where I would fight to the death is the moment that somebody says "I'm now going to amend the Constitution and say that all blood transfusions are now immoral and therefore illegal" or id the Orthodox Jew said "all eating pork is now immoral and illegal." Or the Church says "all abortions, even if you're raped, are immoral therefore illegal." I debated a man by the name of Father John Keane on a TV show not too long ago, and I asked him, "If the church considers abortion murder what penalty would he impose?" And he said based on the fact that it's murder he would call for the death penalty. [Rubin] But he's one -- he is one individual, I presume he would not be entitled to speak for the Catholic Church by any means. [Baird] But here's what's very important. You've seen many times the Catholic Church say abortion is murder. Now follow this logic. If we pass a constitutional amendment that an egg is a person and a woman indeed has an abortion, in regards to what the law says, an illegal

abortion, one must ponder what penalties are we going to give. If the Church already has classified it as murder, it has to logically follow she would be charged with the crime of murder. If she is charged with the crime of murder, you must charge her physician, her boyfriend or her husband, whoever else is with her as coconspirators. Where in the world would you get enough prisons to prison these people -- imprison these people or if you're going to give them the death penalty- It's rather ludicrous to say one respects life and then turn around and say "we would execute people". [Rubin] You see yourself as in effect being ganged up upon by an organized group. [Baird] I don't see myself being-- I'll never get pregnant, I see women being ganged up upon by conservative, right wing, backward forces in this nation who still want to follow the philosophy "keep women at home, barefoot, and pregnant." I think that's the essence of the-- [Rubin] Now all right let me let me just cut that apart of a little bit. Is this a right wing movement or is this a religious movement that you're fighting?

[Baird] I think you can put them both together. I think it's the right wing element of the religious movement. [Rubin] Well are there not a great many people of other faiths, Protestants of all denominations who feel the same as say Catholics or Orthodox Jews on this issue and oppose birth control for those reasons? [Baird] Let me- Not birth control, abortion. Birth control most people are willing now of some intelligence to accept. [Rubin] I meant abortion. [Baird] The issue of abortion is such so that the Protestant Council of Churches supports abortion, various church groups do. Poll after poll showed Catholics support abortion. There's been only one organized religion to publicly state and that's the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference that "we will set up in every parish an anti-abortion group." You certainly can remember the presidential race when Ford and Carter ran for office. Do you remember they had to jump through hoops to explain their position on abortion to one religion, namely the Catholic Church? Not to the Jews and not to the Protestants. [Bernard Rubin] Well this is rather typical of, not only the abortion question on both sides, but it was typical of the bussing issue going all the way back to Eisenhower. Leading politicians often display very little courage on both sides.

Is this something about abortion which is very much like other issues, perhaps even more sensitive, that makes it difficult to drag it out into the ordinary political battlefield? [Baird] Well it's already out in a political battlefield. My idea is that it doesn't belong in a political battlefield. So both -- here you and I are men. How would you and I feel if women organized and said "OK Bernie Rubin and Bill Baird, you are now going to turn around and be forced to have a vasectomy because we think there are too many people in the world. All men over 30 years of age must have a vasectomy." Now, I'm sure you and I being self-respecting people, we would fight back-- [Rubin] In a in a way this in a version this happened in India and one of the key things that knocked off Indira Gandhi's government, that toppled Indira Gandhi's government. But my definition of politics may be a little different than yours. I think almost everything that concerns the public welfare should be in the public forum, the area of political discussion. [Baird] Do you think sex should be in the area -- I'm talking about relationships between people such as

you know they have laws dealing with oral sex and anal intercourse. How in the world-- [Rubin] I didn't I didn't say that it should be the subject of laws or the subject of Constitutional amendments, or you know-- [Baird] But with politics -- [Rubin] But it is the subject for discussion, for freedom of exchange of ideas, for commentary in the newspapers. [Bill Baird] What I do in my bedroom is nobody else's business. [Bernard Rubin] Would you forbid someone from writing an article about that? [Baird] About what I did in my bedroom? You better believe it. [Rubin] Not not as an individual, but we have novel after novel talking about what people do in their bedrooms and about social life-- [Baird] I have no qualm with that, but when somebody passes a law called "crimes against chastity" in the state of Massachusetts, that states in effect that if a woman or a man were engaged in oral sex it's punishable by five years in prison or one now turns around and says homosexuals should be prosecuted up to a 25 year prison term, that blows my mind. That people can be involved in politics as to how people make love. How people make love is an individual concern of the individual, not the business of a government.

[Rubin] You've noticed that I'm more interested in your First Amendment interests than I am in going through the Bill Baird story for our purposes on this program. Therefore I am not expressing any any views personal or otherwise, but I am saying that this is a- an argument which on one day is in the political arena, another day should not be in the political arena, on a third day the constitutional amendment. People don't know how to handle this argument. Are you able to handle it in such a way that your listeners understand, or do you find it necessary to be contentious or in confrontations in order to get media attention in order to get them to understand? [Baird] When I have an opportunity like today I'm thrilled to do this kind of a broadcast because this is Bill Baird speaking. Whereas if this were now being covered by a reporter it would then be determined what they wanted to hear, what they thought I said. And very often I could say your tie is blue, somebody would say I said it was polka dot. So a lot of my views unfortunately are distorted by certain members of the media

which is why I always love this kind of way of exchanging thoughts. [Rubin] What is the fairest aspect of the media so far as you are concerned? [Baird] Oh, radio or TV, you can't alter too much what I say that way, but you sure can in a printed word. [Rubin] And are the print people notoriously one sided against you or do you have elements of the press that that give the message as you think it ought to be given? [Baird] Unlike- in New York, it's much different. Here in Boston I've got, for instance The Boston Globe, three columnists in the last year have torn me up one side and down the other. And what I dislike about that is the fact I would love equal time. See I honestly feel, and I don't know quite how to put this the way I'd like it to be, but like if somebody does this on the air you are allowed equal time to respond. In newspapers, a whole column can be written and tearing you up when a lot of it could be false. With luck you might be able to get a letter to the editor. And I think that somebody whether it be Bill Baird or you or anybody else, that we should have a right to defend our integrity and our honor and any other values we have

by the printed word. That does not exist. [Rubin] Well we've had a Supreme Court case on that in which they said it in effect it ought not to exist in that particular form. You ought not be able to walk into an editor's office and say "I demand the right to respond" because then almost everybody would have that opportunity and the newspaper would no longer be able to to operate as an independent viable organ. [Baird] If that logic follows then how can it follow that on radio or television that you're allowed under the fair doctrine law that people can--? [Rubin] Because there is tremendous argument over the fairness doctrine, as some people say, it is restrictive in the effort to be fair. Others say that it is not fair as they see fairness. I believe personally that the Fairness Doctrine or any doctrine that separates the electronic press from the print press is silly and that the electronic media ought to operate under the First Amendment under no other rules, just as the print press does. I cannot see news being discussed or news being

presented on radio or television under FCC rulings. The only extension of that would be illogical and that would be to have some sort of an FCC unit supervising the press, the print press. Now the Supreme Court just the other day, in late May of 1978 came to the conclusion that newspaper offices can be searched without previous warning so long as there is a warrant. That's very very scary. [Bill Baird] Scary to me. But again you know there's many types of fears. One of the fears we have now is trying to appear on high school campuses where young people really want to hear lectures on birth control. [Rubin] Tell me about that, you've had some trouble on specific high school campuses. [Baird] Like Walthma High School, some students invited me- said, "Bill Baird, please come". The head of the school said "not a fit topic". Newton High School, the principal, I was supposed to show a film of an abortion. They said "well that shows a vagina. It will offend the community. You can't show vaginas to 17 and 18 year old students" like they could possibly never have seen a vagina before. We had to go into a court before they

finally agreed we could speak. The frightening concept is that the school administrators bury their head in the sand as many of the parents perhaps listening to this broadcast are not aware that teenagers are people. Teenagers are not chattel. They are sexual beings. Many of them engage in intercourse. When in the world are we going to grow up as a people to recognize they do have the right to intercourse? They do have the right to the knowledge at least of birth control and abortion. [Rubin] Of course a lot of the listeners will stick with you on the second phrases there, the right to knowledge and on the first phrase their arms will be up, they may be reaching to change the dial and saying "why is Bill Baird saying this?" [Bill Baird] --get this man. Well, all I ask them to do is think of what -- a case I just had the other night: a father had beaten up a boy -- actually beaten up 16 year old kid who made his daughter pregnant and I asked the Father "what did you do that for." And he said "well he had intercourse with my daughter." And I asked the -- father's about my age -- I said "OK man," I said "Did you have intercourse before you got married?" He says "Sure but that's different" and that's a concept that we have --

that we men when we were growing up, we were told we could get sexually experienced, sow our oats so we know what we're doing. We watch on TV a Burt Reynolds, a super stud or a ladies man, Joe Namath. But if a woman has intercourse and she's single, often she's given the title of a tramp or a whore or whatever name you want to give her. And we still use the term bastard or illegitimate for a baby born out of a couple not being married. I think it's time that we recognize that the day of the Virgin is almost gone. And it may shock a lot of people but it's time, since I recognize I never invented sex, it goes on whether you're hearing this in Minnesota or whatever part of United States you're hearing this. Intercourse is here to stay. [Rubin] Let me ask you a question now based upon what you've said, many people think that what you do is good, bad or indifferent, that covers about everybody, but they some of them may think that you are a master, we'll say, of what de Gaulle would call coup d'theatre or the theatrical coup, that you you are acerbic, you are blunt, you come crashing head on. Is

it possible that some of the editorial writers that you're getting opposition from may be commenting because they just don't like Bill Baird, not because they're against what you have to say but this tendency that you have to be first and foremost on the street, getting arrested, saying things like you just said which is which is not in any way moderated, it is flat out kind of statement. [Baird] Well first of all I believe in integrity and honesty and I would challenge anyone listening to this broadcast to dispute the integrity, honesty of the statements I've just given. [Rubin] Granted. But I'm just saying is the style one of the things that might have to do with-- [Baird] One of my favorite quote was in a recent editorial about me in another paper somewhere and it said these words: "what Ralph Nader is to consumerism and Dr. King is to civil rights, Bill Baird is to abortion freedom." Yeah somebody's got to be on that front line. I would love to see, after 15 years of fighting, yes I would like to see somebody else

get arrested to challenge a law, somebody else pay $50,000 in debt for the state of Massachusetts where I don't even live in the state, since I live in New York. I would love to see someone do that, but I don't. In fact if you're a student of this movement, it was only Margaret Sanger in the 1920s who founded Planned Parenthood, who was arrested seven times in challenging these laws. And 50 years later there was nobody but the man sitting opposite this desk. OK. The law that legalized birth control, no one can deny it. It is called Baird vs. Eisenstadt. The challenge for minors' rights, I waited three months hoping that somebody else would challenge the law. Three months went by. Nobody gave a damn enough to reach into their pocket and say, "OK I'll go into debt or I'll barter my freedom to help these young people," until I went in and I'm not saying egotistically but a matter of history, a matter of fact. So when you say to me about being on the front line, being first, you know sometimes I'd rather be last and say, "Hey Bernie you take the next risk for the people of New York or some other state." And I'll tell you a very funny thing.

Once somebody has been inside a 4 by 8 cage, and you're suddenly in a very dangerous environment, you're not too eager to challenge these laws. And yet I still am because I think it must be, and if tonight were to be my last broadcast, my last breath on this earth, I would still fight to that last breath that people must be free. [Bernard Rubin] Well I gather that that your work then in the media and using the media on this issue as a moral crusade, that's the feeling that I get from your words, that you are on a moral crusade in the -- you use the words like integrity and independence and straightforwardness. Is this a moral crusade, do you see this as the the centerpiece of your life at the moment? [Baird] Morality is an interesting word because it can mean one thing to one person and something else to someone else, but a word that's reasonably consistent to me, if I can use this word is a morality of freedom. I believe very much that you and I, the people have a right to be free to do with our bodies as we see fit and we certainly have a right to discuss it openly. And when we're being banned from TV

appearances or our views are being distorted in some of the media or being banned from high schools or colleges, I think freedom suffers and therefore I think all of us suffer. [Rubin] Do you get any accolades along the lines that are unexpected in the midst of all the turmoil? [Baird] I get lots of accolades from the beautiful people who come to me as patients, who hug me. In fact when I was waiting in the studio to see you today, a woman came over and shook my hand she said "thank you for all you're doing." But does it appear publicly? No. I'd be very hard pressed to see anywhere in the United States an editorial that said "hey man we like your style, you got out there and you fought the good battle, you took on a power merchant of the church, you took on the establishment and you won for we the people. Thanks." [Rubin] In the last couple of minutes we have left, what does your activity consist of now? I know that you have clinics, just where are they and what do they do? [Baird] Well where I spend a lot of time is right here in Boston at the Bill Baird Center in Boston and then in Hempstead Long Island. But what I'm trying to do now is appear nationally at high schools and colleges and so if anyone would like to hear me I'd love to come to their campus and speak with them about the very real

dangers of losing our freedoms. And I predict, you save this tape, that we will lose the abortion law within a couple of years by a constitutional amendment, unless the American people wake up to this threat of these First Amendment rights which are freedom of assembly, speech, as well as freedom from religion. [Bernard Rubin] So you see yourself as a protector of the First Amendment directly? [Bill Baird] Directly and also protector of human rights to have access to do with their bodies as they see fit. [Rubin] Have you learned to respect the oppositions that you face or do you feel that they're just off on a tangent that is unwarranted? [Baird] It's very hard to respect an oppressor. It really is. [Rubin] Are all your opponents oppressors? [Baird] Sure, anyone that says to a woman "you must go through a pregnancy against your will" is an oppressor and my bitter enemy and I will fight to the death. To the death. [Bernard Rubin] OK I think that qualifies you as a person in the avant garde. All people in the avant garde do face controversy and contention, it becomes part of your way of life, does it not?

[Baird] It's frightening. Mother's Day I was under police guard. Each week, there are death threats aimed to me, as you know, eight clinics have been fire bombed this past year alone. There's not a week goes by that somebody doesn't write or call me to say they would take my life. Frightening thought. [Rubin] Well Bill Baird let me say this it has been a pleasure having you and I'm delighted that you've been so open on the subject of the background involving the First Amendment and your right to expression and the opponents that you face in regard to the abortion battles that you've been in for the last 15 years. I appreciate your coming. For this edition, Bernard Rubin. The Eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University has presented the First Amendment and a Free People, a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s. The program was produced in the studios of WGBH Boston. This is the Eastern Public Radio Network.