Abortion demo - minus the organised labour movement

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Andy Bevan (fourth from left and co-accused at law courts.

constituency party members cedure will bring the Party picketed the High Court. to once again into conflict with support their comrades the cmurts 2,000 demonstrated on Saturday through the streets of Birmingham in protest against the appalling lack of abortion facilities in Birmingham hospitals.

Coupled with the Lib-Lab coalition government's spending cuts, the right wing consultants in these hospitals have used every loophole in the 1967 Abortion Act to prevent women having abortions on the NHS.

One wondered, however, whether the empty • back streets through which the demonstration passed were intended by the organisers to symbolise a return nationally to pre-1967 conditions.

Single-issue politics

Other factors noticeably lacking, which of course reflect the single-issue politics of the feminist groups such as tłe National Abortion Campaign, were trade union delegations and banners.

Even the statutory "left" Labour MP was for once absent from the platform of the rally held outside the Birmingham Women's Hospital at the end of the demonstration.

At this rally it was left to a London / consultant, Peter Huntingford, to cut through the "not the Church, not the state, women must decide state, fate" chantings of the feminists.

He pointed out that the financing of the NHS is the central issue to be faced by the abortion campaign.

In his view:

'"There is nothing wrong with the legislation-it is the government who have never provided the NHS with the finance for abortion facilities and now they are cutting that finance further."

Class perspective

Relegated to last speaker by the NAC Chairman Berry Beaumont was Val Keen from the ASTMS National Executive-the one speaker in a position to give a class perspective to the fight for abortion rights through the labour movement.

She correctly called upon trade unionists to pass resolutions through their branches and commit their national leaderships to support for abortion rights.

However, what form of action should be taken and particularly her ASTMS, can pli elude her.

The WSL calls upon abortion rights campaigners to join the fight in the labour movement-in trade unions, trades councils and Labour Party bodies-to defend the NHS against the cuts.

Local committeés must assess health needs, including abortion demand, and the financing of the NHS must be adequate to cover this need, rising point for point with inflation.

Strike action must be built LAWSOUT On Wednesday 26 October, seven members of the Newham NE Labour Party, ifcluding_Andy Bevan, the Party's National Youth Organiser, appeared before the High Court charged with contempt of court, following a meeting of the General Management Committee which right own union, y seemed to UNUP stop the cuts.

The WSL supports NAC in its lobbies to expose the anti-abortionists in the Labour Party but calls upon NAC and its "left" supporters in Parliament to campaign to throw out the right wing leadership of Healey and Callaghan with its coalitionist policies of wage control and public spending cuts.

That leadership is now plotting with the Tories to introduce new laws to restrict abortion rights. Any attempt to restrict the struggle to a single issue protest would leave them a free hand.

ESCM Before the hearing, before the trial.

'Militant' supporters from many parts of the country Jomed the lobby, raising the slogan "Hands off Labour" in a pureiy abstract manner.

Neither their slogans nor their speeches dealt with the concrete questions of how the constituency should procede to ensure the

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PRENTICE ARMICN