He Intends to Broadcast Pro-Choice Show : Turner Calls Anti-Abortionists ‘Bozos’

Irate telephone calls started coming into cable television mogul Ted Turner’s Atlanta superstation this morning after he called anti-abortion activists “bozos” and proclaimed that if anyone does not like his station’s soon-to-be-broadcast abortion program with a pro-choice angle, then tough.

“You bet your bippy we’re taking a position,” Turner said Wednesday of the program “Abortion for Survival,” scheduled for a July 20 broadcast on his TBS SuperStation.

Turner told a gathering of television critics and writers at the National Cable Forum in Century City that he didn’t even try to find sponsors for the half-hour show.

“We’ll just take a lick for a night. You know, so it’ll cost us four or five hundred thousand dollars,” he said.

Turner, his language weaving in and out of what is allowed in a family newspaper, criticized anti-abortion activists, saying they try to impose their views on others.

“I don’t want anybody else telling me what my daughter’s got to have, or my wife, or my girlfriend,” Turner said. “We live in a free country. There is absolutely no way that that’s anybody’s business but the person that’s involved. That’s my opinion.”

Despite his convictions, Turner will broadcast a panel discussion after “Abortion for Survival,” with people on both sides of the issue. Just don’t expect him to listen.

“We’ll give the other bozos a chance to talk back,” Turner said. “They look like idiots anyway.”

And that’s not all, he said.

“The pro-lifers say we don’t want people to have sex for fun, only to have babies. It’s sinful. Sex is sinful,” Turner said. “Well, that’s fine if those people don’t want to ever have sex. Swell. I happen to enjoy it. I don’t get near as much as I want to.”