CASE CONTEXT

APPELLEE: BILL BAIRD

Bill Baird was born in 1932, into the slums of Brooklyn during the Great Depression. After witnessing the death of his 12 year old sister due to lack of medical care, he became concerned with health care and accessibility to those not just in poverty, but all across America. After graduating from Brooklyn College in 1955, Baird became employed under EMKO Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on contraceptive production.

1933, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Bill Baird, 2024, Personal Interview.

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Gerri Santoro, 1973, Ms. Magazine.

Baird began advocating for birth control rights across the country; he educated women, distributed contraceptives, and provided women to secure and licensed doctors willing to perform abortions. All of his efforts, often illegal, resulted in his eight arrests in five different states. Yet he continued challenging the law until its revision in his own Supreme Court case.

"'It's time that we got the church and legislature out of the bedroom,' he said. 'When did the uterus become the property of the state?'" ~ Bill Baird, 1972, The Pitt News.

"I lived every moment. Went to jail for it. Suffered for it. Abuse I took in prison. Being stripped naked. Beatings. All the stuff I went through so I could eventually be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court is a price I would not ask anyone to take. But I did it because of my love for humanity and my belief for my dead sister that she would be alive today if we had money to go to a doctor." ~ Bill Baird, 2024, Personal Interview

"And because we could not get medical care for her, she died. And I said in that poverty that if I ever got out of the slums of Brooklyn and I could ever become something, that maybe I could fight to help poor people, thinking of preventing people like my sister from dying." ~ Bill Baird, 2024, Personal Interview

Baird was known as the Clinical Director of EMKO, working closely with hospitals. However, he witnessed an event that radicalized his outlook on contraceptive and abortion rights; a black, impoverished woman, who he learned was unmarried with 9 children, bleeding out into the hospital corridor after a self-inflicted coat hanger abortion. After this, Baird became engrossed in the fight for abortion and contraceptive rights for all - married or unmarried.

"Poor women and their families were disproportionately impacted... Of the low-income women in that study who said they had had an abortion, eight in 10 (77%) said that they had attempted a self-induced procedure, with only 2% saying that a physician had been involved in any way." ~ Guttmacher.org, Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past be Prologue?

Lane, Bettye, 1985. Hollis Images, Schlesinger Library

1985, Schlesinger Library.

Letters asking Bill Baird for assistance regarding birth control or abortions, circa 1970, Schlesinger Library.

THE OPPOSITION: A CULTURE OF MORALITY

While Baird’s efforts were praised by pro-choice individuals and women seeking reproductive care, his actions were not without opposition. He constantly practiced civil disobedience in defiance to laws restricting autonomy and along with his movement, was condemned by religious individuals who valued purity culture; immoral, indecent, and unchaste behavior that encouraged anything besides the norm was highly criticized.

"The Catholic Church sent news releases that Bill Baird is a devil. I'm evil. They held public masses from my soul. And that's how I got so many death threats. Because people say, we're not killing a patient, we're killing the devil." ~ Bill Baird, 2024, Personal Interview

“First, abortion is murder. The fetus has individual rights as a person and is not merely a part of the mother’s body- as is an appendix… Anyone performing an abortion should be tried as any killer who must justify his action before the court.” ~ The Catholic Times, 1960, Making Marriage Click: Child Before Birth has Rights Too, Monsignor Irving DeBlanc

Sandra-Lee Phipps, 1992.

Roper Center, 1967-1968.

“Many Americans saw increased access to contraception as a threat to traditional sexual morality. The Catholic Church was actively opposed to artificial contraception. In the Northeast especially, where Catholics were greatest in number, state legislatures resisted attempts to overturn bans on artificial means of family planning.” ~ Bill of Rights Institute, The Birth Control Pill

“The Roman Catholic Church long has regarded artificial means of birth control as mortal sin. A Wisconsin spokesman said this was because it (birth control) is contrary to the very purposes of marriage.” Evening Star, 1959, Episcopal Body Stands Firm on Birth Control

"And then one of them came into my clinic one day with a gallon of gasoline, no warning. And he shouted, 'I'm going to cleanse Bill Baird's soul by fire.' Some biblical quote. And he took the gasoline, threw it up against the wall, threw the torch. And I had 60 patients in there. And he burned the clinic to the ground. I got everyone out. I had my staff trained during my fire drills to be blindfolded, walk on their knees to the back door." ~ Bill Baird, 2024, Personal Interview

Lane, Bettye, 1985. Hollis Images, Schlesinger Library

“CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY, DECENCY, AND GOOD ORDER”

In 1967, Baird, known for challenging laws after multiple arrests, caught the attention of University of Boston students seeking to contest Massachusetts morality laws prohibiting education on “obscene” topics. In attempt to challenge the law, he traveled to deliver a speech to over 2,500 individuals where he distributed contraceptive to unmarried individuals, prompting his detainment. This arrest is what led Baird to bring this case to the Supreme Court in Eisenstadt v. Baird, arguing for privacy rights.

"Except as provided in section twenty-one A, whoever sells, lends, gives away, exhibits or offers to... for the prevention of conception or for causing unlawful abortion, or advertises... by what means such article can be purchased or obtained, or manufactures or makes any such article shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or in jail or the house of correction for not more than two and one half years or by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than one thousand dollars." ~ Section 21, Massachusetts State Law

"A registered physician may administer to or prescribe for any married person drugs or articles intended for the prevention of pregnancy or conception. A registered pharmacist actually engaged in the business of pharmacy may furnish such drugs or articles to any married person presenting a prescription from a registered physician." ~ Section 21A, Massachusetts State Law

Peter Simon, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, circa 1967.

"In one of the most compelling moments of the night, he held up an old newspaper clipping which read 'Mother Begs for Birth Control,' and asked the audience 'why should any woman have to beg for medical care?'"
~ Anonymous Writer, 2009

Eisenstadt v. Baird

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