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In the United States the main mobilising focus of the women's liberation movement is the Campaign for repeal of all abortion laws in all the States. Such a campaign is seen as capable of involving broad masses of women on an issue that affects them all the right and the ability to control their own lives (sic) through controlling their own body. It brings in the question of community control over institutions that directly affect the lives of the masses in the community and this provides a link with the struggles of the Black communityindeed there is considerable overlap in this respect, involving solidarity between different oppressed groupings. This applies particularly with regard to Abortion Clinics and child-care facilities. It brings in questions of finance as well as those of control and accountability. There is much of highly educational value for the working class in such a campaign, much that can be learnt in terms of demands. (Though these, let it not be forgotten, have been learnt from struggles of the working class).
How is it that the U.S. abortion campaign has become the key issue in building a mass women's movement? First, it is still a capital offence in some States to have one's child aborted. Over the last few years there have been a number of successful attempts to liberalise the antiquated and brutalising abortion laws. But different States vary enormously in the stages of reform that they have reached. Some are very reactionary, having considered and rejected quite mild proposals for reform. Others have introduced reforms which favourably affect the wealthier articulate middle class women and totally exclude the less articulate and the more ill-informed among the working class women, particularly those who are black.
How should we regard this campaign? Obviously as women suffering the same oppression at the hands of the same system, we unconditionally support the attempts to win, through "democratic" constitutional channels and through litigation the necessary reforms that may alleviate, in however small a way, the oppression suffered by women. here and now.
Freed from the compulsion of child-bearing and all the inescapable pressures and obligations that this forces them to face, women can make more positive and autonomous decisions as to how they will lead their life. They can find a degree of fulfilment in a direction of their own choosing. even if this happens to be child-birth and child-rearing. Free contraception and abortion on demand are absolute preconditions for such freedom and are demands which every man or woman calling themselves socialist should support.
Nevertheless, against such a focus we must weigh other alternatives if we are to arrive at a realistic perspective for the women's liberation movement in these islands, and if we are to make an evaluation of the correctness or otherwise of socialists in the U.S. who have adopted this campaign as the main axis of their intervention in the women's liberation movement.
It is not only a question of which campaign is capable of mobilising the broadest mass of women indeed it is even questionable for revolutionaries as to whether the main task for them is mobilising breadest masses (broadest"" in the sense of crossing all class and ideological boundaries). It is also, and more importantly, do we think the women's liberation movement stands to gain most concretely by campaigning solely as a movement, on a single campaign: abortion in particular; or even on a handful of campaigns. to remove some of the most glaring aspects of oppression which do indeed have severe economic and social repercussions on the lives and livelihood of thousands upon thousands of women? Or do we think the women's liberation movement would gain more by going direct to where oppression weighs the heaviest, where it is coupled with undiluted exploitation; i.e. in the work situation of working class women, particularly with children to support, or other dependents. Now unless working class women, a substantial proportion of the working class, can be organised around revolutionary socialist demands and led to support a revolutionary programme for all workers, then their support for the limited campaigns like that adopted by the U.S. movement is likely to remain peripheral to the revolutionary struggle and to that extent even somewhat diversionary -though clearly such a campaign cries out for support from anybody However, once organised and militant around industrial questions capable of eliciting widespread support from the industrial working class e.g. questions of low pay, opposition to unequal grading structures, bourgeois job evaluation schemes, productivity deals and so on-not to mention the right to work, right to unionise, right to picket and propagate the issues working class women will support other aspects of the struggle for women's liberation from a clear perspective, a clear understanding of the class nature of the family, its function in a capitalist society, etc. They will be able then to demand and get wide industrial support for these demands. However, the industrial and the abortion campaign issue struggles should not be posed as alternatives so much as a question of priorities, and groups must choose, given the shortness of time and the scarceness of human and material resources.
Linda Fryd 7 London Socialist Woman Group
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Every year, the Government examines in great detail the
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DEWIL FREES