Birth control pioneer says fight had personal cost

By BRIDGET MURPHY | Associated Press

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Taunts of "baby killer" and "butcher" still echo in Bill Baird's ears, nearly five decades after he began fighting for birth control and abortion rights.

Now 79, the Massachusetts man says a Georgetown University law student's recent verbal bashing on a national radio show is evidence that rights he equates with liberty and equality are in jeopardy.

"There will always be those who will try to deny us our freedoms," Baird wrote in a letter to student Sandra Fluke, who testified to Congress about birth control. "As you have seen, it takes eternal vigilance to fight against those forces."

Baird's own fight started grabbing headlines around April 1967.