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The Paisley Express of November 24th carried an article on the issue of abortion. Pride of place was given to a meeting organised by the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) in Johnstone Town Hall for December 9th at 7.30.
The article quotes John Robertson, the Scottish Labour Party MP for Paisley as saying he was "pretty much with Jim White's views" on abortion and that, while parliamentary duties in relation to the Devolution Bill would probably exclude him speaking, he was fully in support of the SPUC meeting.
SPUC is a reactionary organisation enjoying substantial support from the Catholic church. It is against abortions under any circumstances and has campaigned vigorously on this basis for some years. Its arguments all hinge on the rights of the unborn foetus without any iegard to the night of women to decide whether or not to have children. SPUC has latched on to James White's Bill as a means of turning back the clock on abortion legislation - a clock which in the West of Scotland has not even started yet!
It is not good enough for John Robertson to justify his active support for SPUC as a matter of individual conscience. He was clected as an AUEW sponsored Labour MP: he now sits as a SLP member, having declined to submit himself for re-clection when he resigned from the Labour Party.
The Labour Party, the AUEW and the TUC have all committed themselves to support the demand for free abortion on demand. It is almost certain that the October congress of the SLP had it not been sabolaged by the leadership would also have adopted this demand by a large majority as part of an Edinburgh South resolution to endorse the Working Women's Charter.
As an SIP MP, Robertson's actions are construed as representative of SLP policy. But on abortion, he has not consulted the membership before embarking on his present reactionary course. SLP members must clearly dissociate themselves from his anti-abortion activities by such means as prove necessary.
EVE OLDHAM