Defeat anti-abortion bill!

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On 13th July, 68 Labour MPs voted for John Corrie's anti-abortion bill in Parliament, 84 voted against, while 100 didn't bother to turn up at all.

Prior to this vote on the 2nd Reading of the Bill, Callaghan had vetoed a plan by a group of 'left' women MPs to talk the bill off the agenda and thus prevent it eventually becoming law.

Callaghan was concerned, apparently, that Labour would be seen to be taking a 'pro-abortion? line-despite the fact that Labour Party conference already has a clear policy of 'free abortion on request on the NHS'.

If this bill passes its 3rd Reading (probably coming up in October) the availability of abortion to women will be drastically reduced. According to the anti-abortion group 'Life', who helped Corrie draft his bill, the number of legal abortions performed would be cut by two-thirds.

- This puts a massive extra burden on women. As housewives they will be forced to spend their time shopping around for bargains, cooking laborious cheap meals, making clothes for their families, and even washing by hand as laundrette costs soar. DISARMING THE WORKING CLASS.

The increasing attacks on the working class will mean they will either have to fight back or be defeated. The Tories realise this and therefore are preparing for confrontation. They seek to disarm the working class by their trade union reforms', attacking strikes and picketing and also by developing the family as an instrument of labour discipline.

In the isolation of the home, cut off from the solidarity action and militancy of other workers and not confronting the capitalism directly in the form of the employer, women feel unable to be part of the class struggle themselves; and then hold back their husbands. Alone and subject constantly to a barrage of reaction from the media, some women can take up very conservative positions. That is the significance of the secret ballot-where the decision to strike is left for the male worker to make in the "privacy' of his own home under the influence of his wife and the media. LEAD L. M.d. remains approximately the same, then next year, more than 90,000 more women would have to bear children they do not want, or be forced to backstreet, often dangerous, abortions.

The scene was set for Corrie's bill during the election campaign, when the capitalist press was full of sensational and largely untrue stories about crying foetuses left on draining boards to die. Corrie latched onto this by trying to focus attention on one part of his bill-the proposal to reduce the time limit from 28 to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Reports in the capitalist press have tried to show how 'moderate' his bill is, because only 1% of abortions are performed after 20 weeks anyway.

However, leaving aside the fact that this 'only' 1% contains many women who are in most need of abortions, it is the other clauses in Corrie's bill that will put tree, legal abortion out of reach of the vast majority of women. The most important clause in this respect restricts the recognised grounds for abortion to situations where there is 'grave risk' of 'serious injury' to the mother or baby. In other words, a woman would have to be almost dying before most doctors would be willing to authorise an abortion.

The bill would also tighten up restrictions on the charitable sector to the point of strangling them.

Organisations like the British Pregnancy Advice Service have provided cheap abortions for many women, including foreign women coming from countries where abortion is completely illegal, who cannot get one on the NHS, usually because reac tionary doctors stand in their way.

Without them, the only alternative for these women would be dangerous backstreet abortions.

FLAGRANT ATTACK

There can be no doubt that this bill represents a flagrant attack on the rights of women.

It can be seen as part of the intensifying attack on democratic rights that the Tory government has launched-an attack which has also included a massive increase in the harassment of immigrants and the black population.

Its defeat will only be guaranteed through a mass mobilisation of the trade union and labour movement alongside the working-class women whom this bill will affect most.

Woman Worker urges its supporters to fight in their Labour Party or Trade Union branches for delegations to the TUC demonstration against the Corrie Bill on October 28th.

The TUC were forced to call this demonstration through pressure from the women membership, expressed throughthe Women's TUC conference-a huge turnout on this day can force the trade union leaders into further action.

Equally, or perhaps more important, is a campaign in the Labour Party to force the Labour MPs (all of whom, including Callaghan, mouth platitudes about women's rights) to obey Labour Party policy and vote against the Corrie Bill.

WITHDRAW SPONSORSHIP

The campaign on a 3-line whip on this question must also be taken up in the trade unions, since it was the trade union votes that defeated the proposal previously at Labour Party conference.

Trade unionists should campaign for the withdrawal of sponsorship from MPs who betray women's rights-MPs such as Sir Harold Wilson (who is sponsored by ASTMS) who voted for the Corrie Bill.

The National Abortion Campaign (NAC) which poses as the great defender of aboroutnumber Labour in parliament anyway, Blinded by parliamentary arithmetic, NAC is refusing to put demands on the leaders of the Labour movement for the necessary mass mobilisation of their membership.

A noteworthy example of such tactics was the lobby of the TUC General Council called by NAC to demand that the TUC set a date for a demonstration against the Corrie Bill. NAC supporters attacked members of the Workers Socialist League for 'harassing' the TUC bureaucrats, and declared that the lobby was supposed to be 'sympathetic' To prove their sympathy with these bureaucrats who have never lifted a finger in defence of women's rights, NAC handed out a grovelling leaflet headed "TUC lead the way'.

The TUC and the Labour bureaucrats have yet to lead the way in any fight around women's rights-but Woman Worker supporters will be making sure they cannot get away with this by campaigning vigorously for a maximum turnout on October 28th.

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In 1978, there were 140,000 legal abor- CUTS IN JOBS : CUTS IN SERVICES

tion rights, specifically opposes such a campaign, on the grounds that the Tories