She was a 47-year-old grandmother with a dilemma: an unexpected pregnancy. It was 1972, the year before Roe vs. Wade made abortion the law of the land.
Even though she lived in New York State, where the procedure was legal, the decision on whether to carry the baby to term wasn`t easy. She thought her husband wanted the child; he thought she did. Then they realized that, at their ages, they didn`t want to raise a second family.
Twenty years ago this month, Maude Findlay, the lead character on one of TV`s most popular shows, chose to get an abortion.
Today, Maude`s decision stands as a watershed in TV history, an event that brought the battle over choice into the prime-time arena.
''Maude`s Dilemma,'' the two-parter that presented the abortion question, took a more controversial tack-although, ironically, the program wasn`t conceived with abortion in mind.
With its large, loud protagonist and her messy family life, ''Maude'' was presented as a realistic contrast to the perfection of such TV mothers as Donna Reed and Harriet Nelson. It was also a perfect vehicle to explore the burgeoning feminism of the era.
Population planning seemed to fit perfectly into this scheme. At first, the show was about the pregnancy of Maude`s neighbor Vivian (played by Rue McClanahan), leading into a discussion of contraception and whether Walter, Maude`s husband (played by Bill Macy), would get a vasectomy.
breakthrough for prime-time TV and served as a lightning rod for enormous criticism.
The two-part ''Maude`s Dilemma'' was broadcast Nov. 14 and 21, 1972, although not without some network trepidation.
The first showing of ''Maude`s Dilemma'' was carried by all but two of CBS` nearly 200 affiliates, and attracted nearly 7,000 letters of protest. By the time the shows were repeated, in August 1973, a campaign against them had been organized by the United States Catholic Conference.
The reruns were broadcast, but nearly 40 affiliates chose not to air them, not one corporate sponsor bought commercial time, and CBS received more than 17,000 letters of protest.
''The amount of mail was incredible,'' Bea Arthur said in an interview.
''I can`t call it hate mail, although there were a few that said, `Die, die,` but most were intelligent people who were deeply offended, and very emotional about it. I think the problem was I had become some sort of Joan of Arc for the middle-aged woman.
Despite the protests, the shows attracted a huge audience. In an era before cable TV and home video, the episodes averaged 41 percent of the viewing audience. Not only were they No. 1 in their time period, but they also catapulted the series into the Nielsen ratings Top 10.
CBS estimated that as many as 65 million people watched at least one of the episodes, either first-run or in rerun. That figure represented nearly one-third of the American population.
Twenty years later, it is doubtful a similar show could be broadcast on network TV.
In 1972, the word ''abortion'' was used exactly twice on ''Maude`s Dilemma''-once on each show. Nowadays the ''a'' word has practically been purged from the prime-time vocabulary and is heard almost exclusively on talk shows and some daytime soaps.
A handful of programs-''Hill Street Blues,'' ''St. Elsewhere,'' ''Cagney and Lacey''-have tackled the issue, but for the most part, a major character`s having an abortion is not even considered an option on network programming.
In the rare case that abortion actually occurs, it is usually on a program without sponsorship-the 1989 TV movie ''Roe v. Wade'' reportedly cost NBC $1 million in lost advertising.
But Lear isn`t so sure. Once the most powerful producer on TV, he remembers a time when one person could stand up to a network.
''We are still working in an industry where clout matters,'' he said.