February 11, 1998

Despite receiving death threats the evening before his appearance, Bill Baird, reproductive rights activist and founder of the Pro-Choice League, gave a lecture in the Villard Room sponsored by The Feminist Majority Alliance. “You have every right to be free,“ he told the audience, “you have every right to make your own decisions. I am a fighter.” The Miscellany News

Three non-students protested Baird’s lecture, picketing in front of Main Gate and carrying signs, one showing a 21-week old aborted fetus and another declaring “Abortion is today’s Holocaust.” One of the protestors, Joe Marinaccio, declared “[Baird] believes in killing babies; he believes women have free choice,” and the protest’s organizer, Poughkeepsie resident Helen Westover, the director of Mid-Hudson Stop Planned Parenthood, called Baird an “opportunist,” claiming that he “made millions [by] hurting women.” Baird responded that his only income was a $13,200 Social Security check.

Security officer Kane Zavatsky reported that “extra personnel” and been stationed “in and around Main Building” while Baird spoke and while he met with members of the Feminist Majority Leadship Alliance. Concurrently, members of the student group Respect Life held a meeting in the Gold Parlor of Main Building with Ms. Westover.

The Miscellany News

Baird spoke at Vassar again in 2000.