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Planned Parenthood thinks even less of Baird's recent tactics and his chances in court. In New York he was charged with distributing information and exhibiting contraceptives, and both of those actions can be interpreted as extensions of the right of free speech. But here he has been outflanked by the Massachusetts District Attorney. The charge that he gave out information on birth control, which would probably be declared a constitutional right, was dropped, and the charge that he actually distributed contraceptives was added. Planned Parenthood thinks this question lies in the gray area between individual rights and legitimate state...
Another problem for Planned Parenthood is Baird's own willingness to give contraceptive to the unmarried. "We would waive this consideration," says Stephen J. Plank, assistant professor of population studies and president of the state chapter of Planned Parenthood, "if we thought Baird had a better chance to win his point. It doesn't make sense to violate our charter to support such a risky case as his, though." Planned Parenthood prefers to handle the problem of unmarrieds, Plank says, by "not investigating the marital status of those who come to us for advice. We recommend all such individuals...
...Baird's resentment of those who haven't rallied to his cause keeps coming back to his sense of his own obscurity. And he talks of his frustrations with Harvard students with the same air: "Harvard represents to me the hypocrisy of society. They all have their noses in the air over there. They are so impressed with themselves they forget that there are poor people who are suffering because of this...
...Baird stutters and often acts defensively on a rostrum, he is emotional and self-defensive on a radio interview, and he strikes many Harvard students as churlish. Baird knows this. Despite his manner, it's hard not to admire what Baird has done and what he hopes to do. At one point, he handed me a letter from a poor mother in Rochester who had just learned of her daughter's pregnancy...
...This is what people can't see," Baird said. "Until I challenged that law in New York this woman's daughter could not have received help except from a quack." He went on to future goals. "I want to see the day when no child will be unwanted and unloved. I want to see welfare costs go down. Birth control clinics ought to be set up in poor neighborhoods. These places should be in pleasant, helpful surroundings -- no cold clinical atmosphere. They should operate twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so that people don't have...