Long Kesh 'like Saigon 1968' PBOTO: Derek Speirs IFL BAD EVE NAC pressed to fight the cuts

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In an important turn into the trade union movement, the National Abortion Campaign brought some 350 delegates to a conference last weekend.

But the plan to simply provide a platform for 'left' speeches from sympathetic union bureaucrats did not quite go according to plan.

A WSL leaflet which pointed out that the star speaker, NUPE leader Alan Fisher, is a bureaucrat who has betrayed his members time and again, was attacked by Terry Marsland of the Tobacco Workers Union, who said it made her "upset' to see him described this way.

But it was not only the WSL leaflet which upset this planned cosy gathering of "lefts' Stalinists, Socialist Workers Party mombers and IMG feminists.

They were also dismayed at the WSL amendment to NAC's otherwise meaningless "action PHOTO: Labour Weekly Huckfield proposals" which pointed out that the fight for abortion rights •'is inseparable from the fight to defend and improve the NHS as a whole, a fight that should be based on policies, of a) occupation of threatened services b) supporting strike action c) elected committees oftrade unionists and users of the health service to conduct workers' inquiries into the running of the NHS'.

When 'this amendment was discussed in the workshop sessions it won substantial support in spite of concerted opposition from those who opposed putting any form of demands on the bureaucrats on the platform.

Carried

Eventually the saction declaring the abortion issue inseparable from the fight against the cuts was carried as part of the "action" proposals which included calls for demonstrations, day schools and pressure groups.

Earlier the conference had heard NUJ National Executive member Aidan White implicitly blame the rank and file of the union for the scandalous decision of its NEC to oppose the conference.

"Rank and file demand is one thing they (the NUJ leaders) will not ignore". he declared-failing to explain how it was that the same NUJ leaders had actually flouted & decision of the union's Annual Delegate Meeting in order to oppose the NAC conference.

White went on to speak and vote against the WSL amendments to the resolution.

Mel Read of ASTMS strongly on the need to force unions not simply to adopt policies on abortion, but to do something about them once adopted.

And Dr. Judith Gray (MPU/ ASTMS) spoke on the campaign for day care abortion facilities on the NHS using the dangerous argument that such facilities are "cheaper".

The real point about daycare abortions is that they are safer because they are performed earlier. But they must be seen as part of an expansion of health care, necessarily invoiving greater expenditure.

No such concessions will be forced from the capitalist class or their Labour agents by the method advocated by Tribunite Les Huckfield, however.

One step further away from action than even NAC's "action proposals" , he suggested a campaign of letter writing to MPs to ward off a possible future private member's bill!

In the final session of the conference Socialist Press supporter Ron Giles spelled out a very different perspective for the abortion struggle and shot down Alan Fisher's demagogic claims to be the champion of women and the under 5's by citing the way Fisher himself had talked out discussion of nursery facilities at the last NUPE conference!

Though the hardened block of CP-SWP-IMG feminists succeeded in preventing NAC committing itself to any fight for tangible policies in the struggle against the cuts, the demands advocated by the WSL won considerable support in the workship discussions, and point the only serious way forward in the fight for free abortion on demand. iher