Backdoor attack on abortion rights

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foetal abnormality still not decide for them- At present rich r here we stand labour movement. Organise full support for * Organise the left to beat back the Tories' attacks! No to interference in our unions! No to any wage curbs. Labour attacks on union rights; defend the picket-line; no state * The capitalist police are an enemy for the working class. Support all demands to weaken them as a bosses' striking must ripport all struggles for better living standards and force: dissolution of special squads (SPG, Special Branch, increases. For a price index calculated by working class * Wage rises should at the very least keep up with price *Free abortion on demand. Women's equal right to work and full equality for women. Defend and extend free state 'to provide automatic monthly rises in line with the true cost * Against attacks on gays by the state: abolish all laws which of living for the working class. The same inflation-proofing discriminate against lesbians and gay men; for the right of the gay community to organise and affirm their stand pablicly. * Fight for improvements in the social services, and against The Irish people - as a whole - should have the right to cuts. Protection for those services against inflation by auto- determine their own future. Get the British troops out now! matic inflation-proofing of expenditure. For occupations and Repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Political status for Irish Republican prisoners as a matter of urgency. * End unemployment. Cut. hours, not jobs. Fight for a 35 * The black working people of South Africa should get full bour week and an end to overtime. Demand work-sharing support from the British labour movement for their strikes. without loss of pay. Organise the unemployed - campaign struggles and armed combat against the white supremacist for a programme of useful public works to create new jobs regime. South African goods and services should be blacked.

* It is essential to achieve the fullest democracy in the labour movement. Automatic reselection of MPs during each parliament and the election by annual conference of party leaders. * Defend all jobs! Open the books of those firms that threat- Annual election of all trade union officials, who should be en closure or redundancies, along with those of their suppl* The chaos, waste, human suffering and misery of capitalism occupation and blacking action to halt the closures. For urgent need to establish rational, democratic, human control social property; under workers' control. The strength of the hospitals, not a penny for 'defence'! Nationalise the banks labour movement lies in the rank and file. Our perspective and financial institutions, without compensation. End the interest burden on council housing and other public services. down to its foundations, and to put a working class socialist * Freeze rents and rates. all immigration controls. Race. is not a problem; atives run the system and waiting for crumbs from the tables alternative in its place - rather than having our representracisin is. The labour movement must mobilise to drive the fascists off the streets. Purge racists from positións in the DESPITE the defeal of the Corrie anti-abortion bill in 1979, the Tory government has successfully reduced the grounds for legal abortion. It has done this by altering the form that has to be completed by doctors when: a woman requests an abortion:

Under the 1967 Act the grounds for abortion include the following: the pregnancy: would • cause grave risk to the life of the woman, or physical or mental injury to her or existing children; or, there is a risk that the pregnancy would result in handicapped child.

New form DHSS's new form doctor to nominate the makes I0 pivvion iva MonT malin no nrivicion for the 'social' grounds for authorising an abortion - though these have been named in 80% of abortions under:

the 1967 Act. Effectively;:

conditions like poverty, homelessness and unemployment cannot be:

grounds for abortion unless the woman can prove they will lead to a medical condition.

We must remember that women do not have the right to choose abortion.

Abortion is legal only before 28 weeks of pregnancy and with the consent of two doctors.

In 1975, 141,000 legal abortions were performed in this country. Probably one half of all legal abortions are performed on the •NHS, the rest have to De paid for.

• The cheapest type. of private abortion (in the first 12 weeks: of pregnancy)

costs about £80 from a charitablę organisation like BPAS or PAS.

Unemployed

In some areas like Birmingham, as few as ten per cent of abortions are performed on the NHS. How can women who are unemployed, trying to cope on.

supplementary benefit, or facing low wages, find « an may have nationalised the naliood the of Family Planning Association in 1974, bat in places like Leigh, where I live, there is one family planning clinic a week, and few pro-choice doctors in the area.

Increase

The dangerous sideeffects of the pill (which have caused many women to use less reliable types of contraception) and increasing poverty have started to push the abortion figures up again:

Back street abortion was something of the past, but soon it will be something of the future!

Anti-abortion : organisations have been much more active and vociferous than sucialists, and they have organised more effectively on Community Health Councils and 'Area Health Authorities. LIFE is trying to introdúced a Private Member's Bill which will mäke abortion on grounds Wi conditions.

for the unemployed.

management.

* Scrap of foetal illegal.

The Bill, if passed, will alsó make abortion on grounds of the sex of the foetus illegal.

As socialists we must support the right of each woman to decide whether: to have a handicapped child or not.

The National Abortion Campaign believes that this Bill is a little 'over the top' But we must not be too complacent, and we must oppose it and any others like it.

Little progress

In real terms the fight for a woman's right to choose has not progressed very far. As far back as 1934, the Women's Cooperative Guild passed a resolution calling for the decriminalis: ation of abortion.

In 1977 the Labour Party conference voted for a woman' s right to choose, and yet today women can still not selves. • Many Labour Party members have done little to make Labour Party policy a reality. There are rather: abstract discussions about mandation and accountability of MPs, but these discussions have not been, connected with the importance of mandating MPs to support Labour Party policy on abortion:

It's about time the left put action where words are, and pressed for CLPs to mandate their MPs. At the same time the National Executive Committee must be forced to put Labour Party policy on abortion and contraception in the manifesto.

On the NHS All socialists should be campaigning where they can for adequate abortion and contraception facilities on the NHS.

es defence. Build workers defence squads.

nursery and childcare provision.

paid the average for the trade.

now - in Britain of the bankers and the bosses.

At present rich women can pay, and can therefore AAR MATT and pan th choose, but working class women will be pushed into the inevitable last resort of back street abortion like our mothers were - unless we fight now!

TUEs. FEbRUARY BA K LON SQ.

WITH JOAN RUDDOCK Women's Fightback meeting 'Women Against the Bomb' Tuesday February 2, 7.30pm Corway Hall, Red Lion Sq.

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WOMEN AGAINST Women from GREENHAM COMMON Peace Camp,