Baird Urges Action For Safer Abortions

Bill Baird, a warrior for women's reproductive rights, told a Phillips Brooks House audience last night that action, not mere agreement, is the key for maintaining safe and legal abortions.

Roland A. Van Leiw, of the Secular Humanists of Merrimack Valley, who organized the event in conjunction with the Humanist Chaplaincy of Harvard University said he invited Baird "because he is the only spokesperson I know of with a coherent and consistent message concerning freedom which of course includes reproductive rights."

Baird said last night he has been fighting for sexual freedom since the early 1960s, "long before any of the women's groups."

"I was fighting for abortion rights in 1965 when Gloria Steinem was a Playboy bunny," he said.

His activism has led to personal attacks, including a murder attempt last November, being declared a "Devil" by the Catholic church and numerous attacks to his abortion clinic, the Bill Baird Institute in Long Island.

He said he has taken pro-life groups and the Catholic church head on in a "boly war."

"Those of us in the front lines know we're in a war. If you don't believe me, ask David Gunn's family," Baird said. Dr. David Gunn was murdered in an abortion clinic last month by pro-life activists.

"We were in a war in the 60s, but we're in a much greater war now, a holy war," said Baird in response to the new wave of violence and statements from Catholic officials like Boston's Cardinal Law.

Baird said he plans to sue the FBI to force the government to protect abortion clinics' staff, patients and facilities. He said he warned the FBI in 1978 of a national conspiracy of violence, and the FBI responded that "it desired no further investigation."

Midway through Baird presented a collage of devices used for dangerous illegal abortions, including hangers and Lysol douches.

In his struggle, Baird has aroused much controversy. Last Wednesday, the New York Times ran a story on Baird with a headline reading. "The Devil of Abortion." Baird called it "probably the worst bitter writing ever done on me." In the article, Baird is denounced as an advocate "hated by both sides."

Women's groups including Planned Parenthood and NOW reject Baird as "irrelevant." Robin Morgan, editor of Ms. magazine, called him "one of the more male-supremacist men around" and accused him of fighting for women's rights in order to get them to sleep with him.

Baird said in response to a question it is his belief in freedom keeps him going. "On a conscious level, I believe its my commitment to achieving freedom," he said. "On a subconscious level, some joke that in my previous life I was probably a woman who died from an illegal abortion."

"Do you really think this is a fight over abortion?" Baird asked. "Do you not see that this as a fight over the control of women?"