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discrimination' and 'freeing" women, there is a rapidly growing organisation dedicaied to preserving the family and maintaining the subordinate position of women in society. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) is the largest and most important group fighting to restrict the existing abortion law. Its growth is paralleled by a proliferation of smaller groups with similar aims such as Life, Let Live, Birthright. This phenomena is evident throughout Western Europe, particularly France, Austria, and Germany where anti-abortionists rallied in large numbers in the spring of last year.
An understanding of SPUC is urgent in light of recent attempts by right-wing organisations to use issues having a broad popular appeal to extend their influence - notably the anti-Common Market campaign and the agitation around pornography and the obscenity law.
SPUC was formed in 1967 when the more liberal abortion law was enacted. The organisation now claims to have 8000 members in over 80 groups throughout Britain. In Manchester and Liverpool last year, SPUC mobilised 60,000 for its anti-abortion marches. In November 1973, although it failed dismally, SPUC projected it would bring 100,000 to London for a mass lobby of MPs which was to be the 'most important event in SPUC's history. SPUCundertook to re-imburse the lost earnings of working class participants, and a plane was chartered for Scottish members. On the SPUC executive sits the Marchioness of Salisbury, wife of Marquis of Salisbury, notorious for his connections with right-wing causes. He owns a 50,000 acre farm in Southern A welcome for the demonstrators from SPUC supporters. director of the British South African Company, and a board member of the National Westminster Bank. Recently he made his home available for a meeting of the British wing of an anti-Communist group having international connections. Prominent representatives from the medical profession - to provide the image of scientific credibility, and Church officials form the bulk of the committee. Joseph Healey is the only Tory MP on the committee, but SPUC's views are represented in Parliament through Norman St. John Stevas. The presence of such notable reactionaries should be expected, but more surprising is the presence of several Labour MPs. Gordon Oakes, an MP from Lancashire sits on the executive committee and James Dunn, Liverpool Labour MP chaired the November mass lobby. The Church plays a crucial role in SPUC's activities. When SPUC was first formed, Roman Catholics were not allowed to be members of the executive committee, but the rule was relaxed when Phyllis Bowman, a leading spokeswoman for the group, abandoned her previous atheism and became a convert to Catholicism.
In recent years SPUC has co-ordinated its activities increasingly with Life, a group having close connections with the Catholic Church, SPUC now counts on the Life connections and the Church to swell demonstrations. Sermons calling on church-goers to attend such events, and the dragooning of sixth- formersfrom Catholie schools all serve the cause.
Lobbies and rallies are not the only activities of these
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groups. One pernicious project designed to shock children into becomming anti-abortionists is the organisation of Slide shows in schools with horrendous photos - a rubbish bin filled with foetuses or a hand holding two tiny feet supposedly severed from a foetus.
Life has its equivalent: a telephone system called Lifeline', offering to aid pregnant women who don't want their child. Women who phone, hoping to get advice about abortion are pressured to keep their child. Life-line arranges for families in other parts of the country to accomodate young girls, away from their own family and friends, to avoid the 'shame' of their situation. There is a catch -the girls are expected to act as unpaid domestic servants. This great concern apparently lapses once the girl has her child -then she is turned out of the home.
THE ABORTION LAW Since 1967 it has been theoretically possible for any woman fulfilling one of two conditions to obtain an abortion on the National Health. That is, if the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, or of injury to the physical or mental health of her or children in her family, greater than if she had an abortion' or if there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would be seriously handi-capped.
In spite of the act's broad terms of reference, it has two serious shortcomings. Firstly, its terms are simply not known to the majority of working class women: no attempt has been made by either the Tory or Labour governments to effectively distribute information on abortion and the provisions of the act. Secondly, the final decision to terminate a pregnancy resides with a woman's doctor. If the doctor disapproves of abortion the conscientious objection clause relieves him of any responsibility towards his patient. Therefore he can quite legitimately refuse to refer the woman to a more sympathetic doctor In fact many doctors not unsympathetic to abortion are simply unaware of the details of the Act. The only alternative remaining to a woman in this position is a change of doctors - a process taking weeks under the National Health Service. The defence of the present Abortion Aet is not the key which is reciprocated demand. What must be fought for is its extension to include provisions for effective, safe, and free contraception and abortion on demand.
Meanwhile, SPUC is fighting to restrict the act. In an attempt to limit the number of abortions it proposes time-consuming panel systems to review each case and restrictions on the 28-week termination period. SPUC'S IDEOLOGY SPUC is dangerous because it represents an ideology which is directed not only against the interests of women, but against the interests of the entire working class. It is uniting large numbers of people around reactionary ideas concerning women - the sanctity of the family", the "cult of motherhood", and the higher morality are all ideas pushed by SPUC. • A central theme in SPU C's manifesto is that abortion is a 'short-cut' solution to problems of social injustice. SPUC's solutions, far from dealing with these problems, would only perpetuate the type of society which ensures their existence. All of its proposals, if implemented, would have the effect of strengthening the family unit at the expense of other forms of social organisation, thus reinforeing the status quo.
Their emphasis on housing, for example, stems not from a concern for the homeless, but from a desire to encourage larger families. Their demands centre around the call for larger council houses and landlord concessions to induce them to take families with children. Demands for increased family allowances and maternity grants are similarly motivated.
Nevertheless, such seemingly radical demands are finding an increasingly receptive audience. A valuable role in countering this development can be played by the women's liberation movement as a force capable of organising collective action around alternative perspectives - perspectives designed to free women from their subordinate position within the familyu unit, instead of simply reinforcing their dependence as SPUC would have it. DODIE WEPPLER