Corrie fight must link to cuts action
Socialist Press1979 1979-11-07Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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007 IN THE PROSPERITY P@STAL
'OH 3HL
i can sant BL. CONFED The giant TUC demonstration• against John Corrie's Tory anti-abortion Bill may be over-but the Bill continues to grind through the Parliamentary machine.
The October 28 protest showed the determination of thousands of workers to defend the inadequate abortion rights that exist, and to extend them to achieve the right to free abortion on demand.
Back into the home.
But under a lory government hell-bent on driving working class women out of the workforce and into the isolation of the home there is no way such democratic rights can be achieved.
And with the deliberate rundown of the NHS already denying many women the opportunity of abortion within the existing time limits, the link between the fight against Corrie and the fight against the Tory cuts is inescapable.
Indeed, while we fully support the call for strike action to support a mass lobby of Parliament at the time of the Corrie Bill's Third Reading on 5 February, it is clear to all that the chances of widespread stoppages on the abortion issue alone are, to say the least, remote.
Central issue
It is vital, if the struggle is against Corrie against Corried it tied tin coht cretely with the massive militancy on the cuts, and that union leaders are forced to raise the defence of abortion rights as a central issue in struggles to defend NHS facilities.
Health workers and all trade unionists must demand that February 5 be adopted by the TUC for a one-day strike as its much-promised "Day of Action" against the cuts, and that this incorporate a massive lobby of Parliament against the Corrie Bill.
At the same time preparations must be made to defend women's rights in the event of the Bill becoming law.
Disregard law
NHS unions, and doctorswho have almost universally. condemned the Corrie Billmust be called upon to adopt a policy of safeguarding existing abortion facilities, and disregarding the barbaric restrictions of the Corrie Bill whether or not it is passed in Parliament.
They must declare themselyes ready to take all-out strike action in defence of anyone penalised by the state for carrying out an abortion-or to defend existing charitable abortion institutions threatened with legal attack.