Nearly every major town in Britain now has a FAB (Fight Alton's Bill) Group. In colleges and hospitals students and nurses are starting up their own campaigns. Women Against Pit Closures has sponsored the national campaign. The TUC has cosponsored FAB's March 19th demonstration.
Despite a huge media and postcard campaign by SPUC and LIFE large numbers of women are telling Alton to keep his laws off our bodies and insisting that we will not accept this new attempt to criminalise abortion.
We will defeat Alton by building the broadest possible campaign, uniting together all those who want to defend the '67 Act against any restrictions on time limits. No matter what our differences the campaign against Alton must group together everyone who wants to see this bill defeated. In this way the campaign can draw on people who want to defeat Alton but may not call themselves feminists or socialists, or even agree with a woman's right to control her OWn fertility. We want to Involve the largest number of people possible.
The campaign must be bullt on the basis of mass action - street petitioning, meetings, pickets of MPs surgeries, local marches, national demonstrations. Mass action demonstrates to the state what it will be faced with if it does not concede to our demands. Taking to the streets demonstrates that politics is not just about what happens in the Houses of Parliament, but is about the fight of the working class and the oppressed for their demands.
we fight for the organisations of the working class - the unions and the Labour Party - to join in the fight against the Alton Bill. The right of women to decide on abortion is something the Interests of the whole of the working class. A victory on Alton would strengthen the whole movenent in its fight against Thatcher. A defeat on Alton will strengthen not just the anti-abortionists, but the whole of the right.
It is clear that the leadership of the trade unions and the Labour Party have often not understood the necessity of defending women's abortion rights. In 1975 the TUC refused any mention of contraception and abortion in its Charter for Working Women. By 1979, as a result of mass campaigning for abortion rights, it called a national demonstration against attempts to restrict the '67 Act. Labour MPs and councillors,
trade unions and trade union leaders must be forced to support In our fight. raises the issue of accountability of our elected representatives and the nature of abortion as a class issue. Women most immediately affected by restrictions on abortion rights, and therefore are the most militant and intransigent in the campaign. Women must lead the fight against Alton.
The situation in the abortion movement is not the same as it was a decade ago. The women's movement, like the labour movement, has been weakened by Thatcher. The response to the Powell and Gillick attacks on women's rights was not as strong as it would have been in the 70s. The split in NAC weakened the feminist movement and the demonstrations of the 80s were, for the most part, far-left dominated.
The TUC, the Labour Party and the major trade unions have become Increasingly dominated by a 'new realist' ideology according to which it is impossible to defeat Thatcher through class struggle methods and compromises have to be made to the prevailing prejudices. important 'left' figures in the Labour Party have shown some hesitation over time limits, accepting the arguments on viability and a twenty-four week time timit. The basis of the campaign must be no restrictions on the '67 Act. Anything less 1s unacceptable.
One of the major forces behind the Fight Alton's BIll the National Abortion Campaign, which Campaign, has been fights for free abortion on demand. NAC's existence has made It possible to fight repeated attacks on abortion rights. It has always involved itself fully in the campaigns which emerged around specific attacks on '67 Act, uniting with NAC, working wi preparedelf le all those prepared to resist any particular restriction. working with women In the trade unions, forced the TUC to take action against Corrie in 1979. Within these united front NAC explains why its demands are correct and campaigns, produces its own propaganda on the importance of free abortion on demand. NAC argues for women to have control over their bodies as a fundamental human right.
In these ways it is hoped that all pro-abortionists will come to realise that accepting any type of limit on abortion opens the possibility of the state removing abortion rights at will.