A year or so after the defeat of the Corrie Bill - by mass TUC action - it looks as if women's abortion rights are once more in dancer.
Cut-backs in the NHS have already led to an erosion of the 1967 Act. Less women today are having abortions because of the shortage of hospital beds, shelving of day-care centre plans etc, than for some years.
SAINSBURY Now, on top of this, Timothy Sainsbury (Tory MP for Hove, who came top in the private members ballot) has said he may introduce a Bill to lower abortion time limits and tighten up the conscience clause.
If Sainsbury's Bill goes ahead, it will mean that thousands of women will, once again, be faced with the age-old dilemma: to have a child they do not want or return to the backStreeLs.
IHKHAH Faced with this new threat, the National Abortion Campaign (NAC) nas area pean o swing mo a" tion. It has called on all its supporters to start a massive letter-writing campaign to sainsoury to snow lie extent of the opposition he faces.
NAC's national planning meeting this January will be discussing the next steps in the campaign. Clearly, a key priority will be working out ways of mobilising support in the labour movement. It was, after all, the mass turn-out on the TUC sponEDUCATION FOR SOCIALISTS The hunger-strikers of the Northern Ireland H-Block prisoners had a major impact in Britain and Ireland. The prisoners were desperately protesting inhuman treatment.
The torture and humiliation they were subjected to by the Tory government merely continues, however, a centuries-old policy of repression.
Since the time of Marx and Engels, revolutionary socialists have been deeply involved in support of the Irish struggle for self-determination.
In November 1872 - 108 years ago - Marx, Engels and other members of the International Working Mens' Association helped organise a demonstration of over 30,000 in London to demand an amnesty for the Irish political prisoners of the time.
These were the prisoners from the 1867 Fenian Rebellion. That uprising for Irish independence failed, and 169 participants were brought to trial. Half of them were sentenced to hard labour.
A mass movement developed to demand amnesty for the prisoners.
Engels wrote a report about how the November 3rd 1872 demonstration to support the Irish political prisoners was built.
Written for an Italian workers' paper - La Plebe - it is reprinted in Ireland and the Irish Question: A Collection of Writings by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. It is well worth reading by those socialist currents, such as Militant, whose policy on Ireland is so far removed from that of the founders of Marxism.
Below are excerpts from Engels' article.
London, November 14, 1872.
The Liberal English Government has at the moment no less than 42 Irish political prisoners in its prisons and treats them with quite exceptional cruelty, far worse than thieves ana murucicis The Irish members of the International in London decided to PREE ABORTION ON DEMAND sored demonstration in 1979 that threw the Corrie Bill in the dustbin where it belongs.
t wa onv de dv taboung unis sub port again that any further erosion of the 1967 Act can be stopped. The fact that the TUC recently passed a resolution deploring continued attacks on abortion facilities shows the potential that exists.
LAW Winning such support will not only be key in preventing any further curbs to the 1967 Act. It will also be important in gaining mass support for the positive legislation Mass demonstration against first anti-abortion bill by James White. NAC decided to pioneer at its lasi conference.
NAC agreed to prioritise three key issues: first, the need to fight for adequate abortion facilities, second to amend the existing laws to "decriminalise" abortion and third, to fight for a woman's right to choose. Mass backing has to be won for such aims in the unions and Labour Party to ensure that when the next Labour government is elected, it actually begins to implement them. The NAC labour movement conterence this March will be an important seg ewards aining such surger The Irish, who represent the most pressure they are under.
POST BAG The march and public meeting in defence of the Filipino do mestic workers (see p. 2 -Ed) were important first steps Third: you play up the move towards a labour party. While I agree sucn a party was necessary - to pose an alternative on class lines - it is quite incorrect to give the impression
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