THE NEW Pro-Life Alliance has stated its intention to stand S0 candidates at the forthcoming general election. With the financial backing of Mohammed Al-Fayed, they announced in early January that they had 20 candidates already in place.
If they are able to achieve the Co ou ais wo Cic to a party political broadcast. They of a late abortion, a new version of the infamous "Silent Scream".
This campaign is being assisted by the increasing intervention into political life by the Catholic Church, which for 2000 years has stood in the Over recent weeks, Cardinal Basil Hume used a television appearance to call abortion ' a great evil" unworthy of a civilised society'.
His Scottish counterpart, Cardinal Winning, who had attacked biair s supposca nypocrisy on abortion last autumn, io tiven Today form by programme to continue to attack. Winning claimed that Labour was forcing those MP's who were op. posed to abortion to keep their views Such reactionary broadsides have been given a good deal of follow-up coverage in the press, ensuring they reach a wide audience.
The Tories have been quick to jump on the bandwagon. Robert Spink MP, a junior government minister, bas unsca voicrs not to case their votes for pro-choice candidates. Conservative Central Office has highlighted the fact that "Emily's List' which exists to promote women MP's only sponsors those with a pro-choice position.
Loser
Clare Short, talking to The Guardian's Maureen Freely on January 2, argues that the greatest loser in this game is the Catholic Church itself which has alienated an entire gencration of catholic women with its antiquated yiews on sex and womens rights. brought up a Catholic, has however been the only Labour politician to put her head at all above the parapet and denounce this reactionary crusade.
She has further argued that there was no pressure on Labour MPs to vote against "their consciences' and defended this policy which pro-choice activists have long fought against. Her partial defence of women's rights remains however in contrast with the Hlair clique who have attempted to damp down the WiC OW.
This is scarcely surprising when Blair has moved increasingly to claim religious, moral justifications as the basis to diferentiate him from the Tories. When their eco nomic and social policies have moved so close together, this has been a uscful, and safe basis to emphasise a supposed difference.
Pro-choice activists need to gear up for the months to come. In October 1996 a Mori poll for the National Abortion campaign found that 81 per cent of people in this country supported a women's right to choose.
That situation has been achieved through long years of battling by the ото слоїс тютстеи ала сос 105 give us the basis for complacency in the face of this new threat.
The National Abortion Campaign is organising a series of speakers training days for pro-choice activists around the country. They will take place In Liverpool and Birmingham on January 18.
For further details contact NAC on 0171 923 4976