Agitating for Pearls: An Interview with Bill and Joni Baird (Portraits OF ACTIVISM: THE FATHER FIGURE, THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS, THE FIELDWORKER, THE Radical) (Interview) (Cover Story‪)‬

BILL BAIRD OPENED THE FIRST abortion and birth control facility in 1964 and has devoted his life to the cause of women's reproductive freedom and rights to privacy. He won all three of his Supreme Court challenges toward this end and has been jailed eight times in five different states for lecturing on and exhibiting birth control methods. He's been called everything from a pioneer to the devil to a "sexual pied piper" with a "savior mentality." Baird is the co-director, along with his wife Joni Baird, of the Pro-Choice League out of New York and Massachusetts (they can be reached through ProChoiceLeague. org). Here they discuss the motivation, inspiration, and concern that encompasses their activism. The Humanist: You are both devoted activists for reproductive freedom and privacy rights. Bill, you've even been called "the father of the abortion movement." How do you each define the term "activist"?