Walk-out from Corrie committee
Socialist Press1979 1979-11-28Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 5 →
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- Labour MPs walked out abortion Bill last week in protest against the way in which the Tories are bulldozing through their proposals.
Willie Hamilton and Oonagh McDonald described the proceedings, chaired by Tory MP Mr Bonner Pink, as "a disgrace"
About-face
Amongst other blows struck against those fighting the Corrie Bill is the complete about-face Vaughan on the upper time limit for abortions.
Only a fortnight ago he horrified anti-abortionists by declaring that the top limit should be 24 weeks, instead of the 20 called for by Corrie.
He cited the problems of detecting some foetal abnormalities prior to 18 weeks of pregnancy, and also argued against yet but one any change in the present criteria for abortion.
And Vaughan went on to describe a proposed 22-week maximum as "the worst of all worlds"
But last Wednesday he went back to the Tory-led committee to present medical "evidence" to back a 22-week deadlinebased on a letter from Professor Reynolds at University College Hospital, London.
Reynolds claimed that ."a few" of the "small numbers" of babies born at 24 and 25 weeks survive in his infant care unit.
None born at 23 weeks has survived, admits Reynolds claims "it is inevitable that On the basis of this tenuous nonsense, the vague possibility of a 23-week old foetus at some point surviving in laboratory conditions is transformed into an argument for forcing thousands of working class women to endure the agonies of an unwanted pregnancy.
And John Corrie himself has willingly accepted the "compromise" deadline of 22 weeks, confident that this will defuse much medical opposition to the Bill.
Urgency
Meanwhile on the casting vote of the committee chairman, the word "serious" was reinserted into the criteria justifying abortions-spelling out the fact that without mass action by the labour movement to defeat and remove the Tory government, existing - abortion rights will soon be destroyed.
Hence the urgency of the campaign for strike action and a mass lobby of Parliament against the Corrie Bill on 5 February; of forcing Labour MPs to vote against the Bill; and of mobilising health unions and the entire labour movement in action to defy the Bill should it be railroaded onto the statute book.
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of the sixth committee hear- ing on John Corrie's anti-
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