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One of the classical demands of the Women's Liberation Movement is "Free Contraception and Abortion on Demand". It is a very important one, as it is a first step in the direction of women controlling their own body. The size of the Anti-Abortion rally in Manchester has given us another proof of the hold the Christian ethic still has over this society; an ethic which defines woman as a womb anxiously waiting to be fertilised, and which belongs to the community. Although I agree that a lot of campaigning for free contraception and abortion on demand must continue, I would like to look at these demands and their implications a bit further. It is useful therefore to have a look at the second paragraph of the demand in the "Introduction to the Womens Liberation Workshop".
*We also have to begin to define what control over our own bodies really means. We don't want more and more pills and easier abortion if at the same time we don't begin to be able to make meaningful choices and not just end up with the freedom to get into a real mess".
The pill has certainly freed women from the fear of an unwanted pregnancy and the ensuing burden of childbearing (it was replaced by fear of thrombosis. Does that mean we can control our bodies now? Being able to control our reproduction is one aspect. The other is our sexuality, female sexuality. Are we in control of our sexuality now that we can control our procreation? It took long enough for society to admit we were capable of sexual pleasure. Freud recognised this fact but buried us deep down in the shit again by defining the clitoral orgasm as infantile and the vagina as the land of milk and honey. None of his theories had an anatomical basis. We know now that the vagina has no nerve endings, which means that it certainly cannot be a very sensitive area. It has also been established now by many researchers that the clitoris is definitely the women's erotic organ and that it is also the organ that through stimulation provokes female orgasm. As the clitoris is not in or on the mouth of the vagina it is logical to conclude that the organ from which we derive sexual pleasure is quite separate from our procreation factory. Why have we been silent for so long; Freud surely did a good job; women can have their sexuality, but only on male terms. We are still very silent. Why are we frightened of not acting feminine, when this means acting out a male fantasy. I am sure they too have been conditioned into their roles; but aren't theirs somehow somewhat cushier than ours?
In the beginning of these notes I said that free contraception and abortion would be a first step towards women controlling their own body. It is only a step on a long road. If we do not look further and do not affirm our sexuality on our terms women's liberation will stay a utopian idea. Only the theories of what the basis of our oppression is and how it serves capitalist society to keep women in a position from which they reproduce its ideology as well as its slaves, will flourish. Already now, some women in the women's movement start saying they teel torn and schizofrenic, because they feel the only way to work effectively for liberation is to work with women; at home though there is a man who fucks her. ('You take the pill so what is bothering you?'). What bugs her is the realisation that she is not in control of her sexuality, that there is no equality.
It is time that women start to impose their terms, or as the French Women's Movement put it "first withdraw your troops and then we shall talk" . In genuinely shared sexual fun, where the vagina becomes just one of those places used for sexual games, as so many other parts of the body, contraception and abortion would certainly also start to play a minor role in our lives, and probably sexism would become an obsolete word.
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for a socialist 1. Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child On March 25th a demonstration was organised in Manchester against abortion. The demo was promoted by the so-called Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC), and Its organisors encompassed the whole spectrum of right-wing and clerical reaction. It marched under the mystifying slogans of the 'beauty' and 'naturalness' of motherhood and 'Abortion killa'. SPUC is an extremely dangerous political enemy for its support is growing. Thus in Manchester there were about 80,000 demonstrators, compared with about 20,000 on a similar demo in Liverpool last year. 2. Response of the Left Manchester Women's Liberation put in a great deal of work in mobilising for a counter-demo. In the end there were about 600 sisters and brothers picketing SPUC. This was more than in Liverpool. No support was to be seen from the organised labour movement (chauvinism ?). It is important that militants show more support to expose the fact that under this system motherhood for working women is frequently the passport to a life of drudgery and financial hardship. It is also necessary to point out the sheer hypocracy of a system, one of whose basic props is the idea of motherhood and the family but yet which continually ignores the medical needs of women - not only in respect to abortion where methods even when available are still primitive in the extreme) but also in respect to child birth itself (where birth and physical pain are still synonimous). The whole field of medicine has been subject to a constant underdevelopment of research, a fact not unconnected with the present near monopoly of the larger contraceptive firms. 3. The illusion of 'choice' It is very easy-especially for men to be parasitic on the women's movement in the sense of confining support to the abstract 'Right on sisters'. In particular support remains abstract if there is no comradely attempt to help the movement develop and thus criticise past errors. position on 'WERE AGAINST LEGALISED ABORTIONS"
One of these errors has been the way many women's groups have given a reformist explanation of the slogan of abortion on demand. Thus this is frequently posed in terms of 'a woman's right to choose' or "a woman's right to control her own body'. Unfortunately words such a 'right' and 'choice' are just as confusing as "Motherhood is natural'. It is actually untrue to say that abortion on demand will give the majority of women a meaningful choice whether or not to have children. This is because the majority of women are often unable (for financial reasons) or unwilling to have children. This of course is précisely why many women want abortion. To talk in terms of 'choice' is reformist because it doec not tackle the question of why the system is such that many women feel compelled to need abortions, in short why the system cannot provide for children. The class boundaries are drawn very clearly here• Thus whereas for working women any choice is illusory, yet bourgeois women do often have a comparatively real choice inasmuch as their family situation does allow them, if they wish, to bring their children up.
Moreover it is a utopic solution (and therefore no solution) for working women and men to struggle together to aspire to a bourgeois family relationship. Precisely because the objective function of the nuclear family is the oppression of working women, it is the nuclear family
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which provides the essential organisational and ideological framework for the lack of socialised housework and the justification for unequal pay. This is why it is reactionary. 4. Women who want children This argument as to choice is important not just for reasons of theoretical clarity. It is important because it makes it possible to face up politically to the problem of those women who actually want children. It is not enough, and indeed it is wrong, to dismiss these as the equivalent of Uncle It is true that many are imbued with the mystifying ideology of motherhood and many are directly influenced by clericism. Likewise it is an obvious truth that these: women want children in the context of the nuclear family which is essentially reactionary. However it is again utopic to expect these women to either individually or collectively renouce their family relationships. Again when such women march behind those such as Mary Whitehouse, Muggeridge and sundry bishops, we should attack them unremittingly.
Nonetheless revolutionaries should face up to the long term struggle of winning these women, especially as they comprise probably the majority of working women.
Thus a crucial distinction must be made between the leaders of SPUC, who have a rigid and more or less consistent reactionary philosophy, and the men and women on the demonstration, who are often simply confused politically. For instance it is a fair bet that though the women on the demo have a right-wing view of abortion yet many , because of their Irish connection, are against British troops in Ireland. 5. The strategy of the bourgeoisie Another fact socialists must face upto is that the bourgeoisie, or its more 'enlightened' sections, is becoming anxious on an international level to provide abortion and contraception facilities. Thus in Britain for example there has been a steady progress from (1) abortion illegal (2) legalising abortion within limits (3) a beginning by at least some local authorities to provide free advice and contraception (4) on the very day after the SPUC demo, the government announced national plans for available contraception on the N.H.S.
The reasons for these developments are clear at least in a general sense. There are, for capitalists, just ton many people to feed, In particular when the bourgeoisie talks of overpopulation and too many people to feed they mean too many workers (and peasants). In India we might soon see the situation of, if not forced sterilisation, then induced sterilisation in respect to offering a form of family allowance for one or two children and nothing (or even a penalty) for any more. Even in the imperialist heartlands we have entered a prolonged period of unemployment, which ulimately is against the bourgeoisies own interests to the extent that it brings the whole system into disrepute.
In Britain it is arguable that one of the main reasons why there is not yet abortior on demand is (apart from monopoly interest and the short term expense) that the rulir class still has to shake off ita religious mystifications, but if Is certai ly not incapable of doing this as is showr in the case of South Ireland where members of the now ruling coalition have spoken ir favour of legalising contraception. 6. For an independent clasa position The mere fact that the demand for free available abortion is on the one hand bein demanded by the women's movements and on the other hand is being championed by certain elements of the bourgeoisie, is nothing to be perturbed by. There have been historical examples of where proletarian and bourgeois interests have moment arily coincided whilst being opposed. The separate activity by the Communists and th nationalists against the Japanese invasion of China is one instance. What does becom perturbing is when the 2 lines continually zig zag into one another or even begin to run parallel. In political terms this means class-collaboration. This is the POTENTIAL danger the women's liberation movement must avoid.
This is why the class boundaries must be very clearly drawn, and a proletarian strategy worked out totally opposed to the bourgeoisie. To do this it is not good enough to speak of 'women' in the abstact. Women, as women, have no unified, homogenious classless interest. They have class interests and these class interests differ. They have either bourgeois or proletarian interests and those women from the petit bourgeoisie can be won either way depending on the relationship of force and one of the factors determining this relationship is the clarity of the presentation of proletarian ideas. This is not an argument against an autonomous women's liberation movement, rather it is an argument for the continuin development of such a movement on the correct political basis.