STATEMENT ON THE On Sunday, 25 March, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child and other forces are organising a demonstration in Manchester against abortion. This follows a similar one in Liverpool last year which attracted nearly 20,000 supporters. The organisers encompass the whole spectrum of right wing and clerical reaction, and their slogans glorify the "beauty" and "naturalness" of "motherhood". It is important for socialists to oppose this demonstration on the streets. Counterposed to the mystifying slogans of the organisers must be an explanation that under this system "motherhood' for working class women is frequently the passport to a life of drudgery and financial hardship, and that women ought to be able to opt out of this "beautiful' experience if they wish. All socialists should support the demands of the women's liberation groups for free contraception and abortion on demand -and fight for the acceptance of these amongst men as well as women.
But it is very easy - especially for men - just 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 contribute to the discussion through which the movement must develop, and thus criticise past errors.
ILLUSION OF "CHOICE' One of these errors has been the explanation given by many women's groups of the slogan •of abortion on demand. This is frequently posed in terms of 'a woman's right to choose or ta woman's right to control her own body'. Unfortunately, words such as 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 (because of ideological as well as financial oppression - as in the case of the single mother) to have children. This, of course, is precisely why many women want abortions. To talk in terms of "choice does 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.
International Womens Day Demo in London. The class boundaries are drawn very clearly here. Whereas for working class women any choice is illusory, many 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 in materially decent conditions, send them to decent schools, etc. Moreover it is a utopian solution for working class women toaspire to a bourgeois family relationship when the objective function of the nuclear family is the oppression of working class women. It is the nuclear family which provides the essential organisational and ideological framework for the lack of socialised housework and the justification for unequal pay, and this is why it is reactionary. WOMEN WHO WANT CHILDREN This argument as to choice is important, because it makes it possible to face up politically to the problem of those women who actually want children. It is true that many are imbued with the mystifying ideology of motherhood, and many are directly influenced by the church. Likewise it is an obvious truth that these women want children in the context of the nuclear family which is essentially reactionary (and indeed this is often the source of their 'want*). But it would be utopian to expect these women either individually or collectively to renounce their family relationships (and this sort of utopianism has to be argued against in the women's liberation movement itself. Instead, revolutionaries have to face up to the long term struggle of winning these women -who comprise probably the majority of working class women - to the revolution. To talk of abortion giving 'the right to choose means nothing to these women - they already want children, but inevitably find the economic reality quite daunting. Socialists must face up to this situation, and give such women a persprogression from abortion being illegal, to its legalisation within limits, to the provision by at least some local authorities of free advice and contraception. In Denmark (more or less independently of any activity by the small women's movement) there is already a form of free contraception and abortion on demand. The mere fact that the demand for free available abortion is thus on the one hand being demanded by the women's liberation movements and on the other being championed by certain elements of the bourgeoisie, is in itself nothing to be perturbed about. What would be perturbing would be if these two forces not only coincided temporarily but were actually to merge in class-collaboration. That is the potential danger the women's movement must avoid.
INDEPENDENT CLASS POSITION That is why it is so necessary that the class boundaries be clearly drawn. It is not enough to speak of 'women' (or men') in the abstract. Women, as women, have no unified, homogeeither bourgeois or proletarian interests, and those women from intermediate layers of society can be won either way depending on the relationship of forces — which is partly determined by the clarity of the presentation of proletarian ideas.
As regards abortion, this means arguing that not only are working class women at the moment unable to opt out of having children, but also that the majority only 'opt in' in the most oppressive, poverty-stricken sense - and that the main institutionalised framework for this under capitalism is the nuclear family. A counter-demonstration against the anti-abortion. rally in Manchester on 25 March, is being organised by an Ad Hoe Committee - meeting at 2.00 p.m. on the open ground opposite the Women's Liberation Centre at 218 Upper Brook St. For further details contact the Ad Hoc Committee c/o Manchester Women's Liberation Centre, 218 Upper Brook St.,
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neous, classless interest. They have class inter- ests and these class interests differ. They have