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Monday, Apr 9, 2012 6:45 AM UTC

Pioneer says birth control battle had a cost

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Topics: From the Wires,

Pioneer says birth control battle had a costIn this April 5, 2012 photo, birth control pioneer Bill Baird, 79, poses by the bars of an old Charles Street Jail cell, currently in the lobby of the Liberty Hotel, in Boston. Forty-five years ago, Baird's arrest for giving spermicidal foam to an unmarried 19-year-old coed set up a constitutional challenge that sent his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)(Credit: AP)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — This month marks the 45th anniversary of abortion rights activist Bill Baird’s arrest at Boston University for giving contraception to a student.

Now 79, the Massachusetts man spent 36 days in jail in Boston after his April 1967 arrest. Baird appealed his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices found in his favor.

That 1972 decision, Eisenstadt vs. Baird, gave single people the same rights to birth control as married people.

Decades later, Baird recently told a lecture audience in Massachusetts that he’s determined to keep fighting for reproductive rights.

Supporters and some people who’ve opposed Baird’s abortion rights activism agree he will go down in history.

The Rev. Frank Pavone, from anti-abortion organization Priests for Life, says he respects Baird’s work as a “warrior” on the opposite side.

More Bridget Murphy.

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