Fighting for a woman's right to choose
Two campaigns are now combatting aspects of the new Embryology
basis for joint activity between them. Since the 1967 Abortion Act, nearly all legislative attacks on women's reproductive rights have been attempts to restrict abortion, The exception was the Gillick Bill which tried to restrict young women's access to contraception. The confused responses to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill are in part because the Bill and proposed amendments cover a range of issues, of which abortion time limits is one.
The National Abortion Campaign, responding as it has in the past to such attacks, organised a national meeting and helped set up the Stop The Amendment Campaign, to which was added the slogan Fight For Choice (STAC-FC).
The Rights Of Women (ROW) Lesbian Custody Project, seeing the question of Donor Insemination (DI) for all women who seck it also under attack, set up the Campaign For Access To DI (CADI). So there are two campaigns. It has now been agreed that a Linison Committee should be set up to coordinate joint national and local actions, for example during the week of action in February and any national demonstrations.
Local campaigns are being set up all round the country, and often these are being jointly organised, both because activists recognise the connections and so that scarce human resources can be maximised.
The dangers implicit in dividing off the campaign in defence of abortion rights from the rights of access to Di for lesbian and single mothers is not only a question of doubling the amount of work. In the letter sent out from the STAC-FC campaign, the writer of the letter, if not the campaign itself, is ambivalent on whether we should oppose or support the Bill. She accuses the anti-abortionists of "hijacking the embryo rescarch Bill' which she says will "further confuse the important debates around embryo research and the issues which are being raised under the Bill'.
Everyone agrees that abortion is a key reproductive right. Women seck abortions whether or not they are legally available. To have a child which is not wanted, to have to look after it until adulthood, often in poverty is a major social issue for large numbers of women. We defend such rights as we have achieved for those reasons. But the Bill seeks restriction of other reproductive rights, equally important to those women who seek
them. And in addition they are rights (for lesbian and single women) which confront the Tory ideology of the traditional nuclear family.
Apart from the tactical decisions, which can be made nearer the time, on whether campaigners should support 14 days as op posed to no rescarch at all, and support for the surrogacy clause, the Bill is an attack on a woman's right to choose, and as such we should oppose it.
Far from it being a problem in taking up all aspects of the attack, it will be a positive benefit to any campaign if all those women affected - lesbian and single mothers, black women, young women as well as pro-abortionists - are involved and prepared to fight for all reproductive rights, not just one. In a sense we have no choice anyway. The Bill takes them up and it would be irresponsible to separate out abortion because that is the one we have traditionally fought around.
Nor can we fight the abortion question on the old 'Defend the '67 Act' ground either. Current medical techniques mean that the basis of the 1967 Act no longer holds. A foetus can be viable at 24 weeks (and even before in some cases). We have to use the slogan of 'A Woman's Right To Choose'. To choose whether, when, where and how to have her baby is an important demand and covers many aspects of reproductive rights so that no woman feels excluded by its framework, And we must include under its umbrella rights of access to Di for all women who seck it, no matter what their status or sexuality.
It's a pity there are two separate campaigns, but both at a local level, where we should support single campaigns and at a national level through the Liason Committee, we must encourage as much joint activity as possible. Lobbies of Parliament, demonstrations, and meetings should be either set up under one organisation or organised jointly. We cannot afford to be divided over these issues. We must take up the campaigns in the Labour Party and in trade unions. In 1979 the TUC supported the anti-Corrie march. We have to try and rebuild that support.
The Bill represents one more element of the right's pro-family and anti-choice strategy. We are going to have to fight hard to defeat the Bill but given unity in action and a preparedness to work with all who op pose the Bill we can win. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
Like Gillick, the wacky right cannot accept any form of women' sontrol over fertility or reproduction 2) Socialists must fight for
The two main positions on the Embryology Bill spelled out 1)