One hundred and eleven Labour - including Harold Wilson -flouted TUC and Labour Party conference decisions on 9 February when they voted along with most Tories to re-convene the reaction.
White's Abortion (Amendment) Bill back on the agenda. This is the same Bill that last June drew 30,000 demonstrators out in protest against its provisions, which would have driven thousands of women to backstreet abortions.
The Select Committee's job is clearly laid down: it is to consider the matters contained in the Abortion (Amendment) Bill'. Indeed, Labour anti-abortionist cheer-leader Leo Abse has publicly stated three areas it will deal with: first, the 'problem' of discrimination against doctors with conscientious objections to abortion: secondly, the need to tighten up on licensing advice bureaux; and finally, the practice of some doctors to grant abortion virtually on request under...the origIn other words, as the Catholic weekly paper The Universe makes explicit: The vote means there is a good chance of the it is interestino inar many wno support abor tion are vociferous in the support for the Sovlet Union.
Jill Knight Act being amended and a tightening up on liberal grounds for abortion." Nor has the setback this vote represents for those committed to fighting for women's rights gone unnoticed by The Universe. Bold headlines of Abortion A Battle Won' and Work Must Go On' greeted Universe MPs of Abse's ilk dominate the Select Committee. In the past, they hid behind claims that they simply wanted to eradicIf these MPs were so concerned about abuses in the private sector they would be in the forefront of the fight to defend and extend the NHS - for the full integration of the private sector into the NHS. This is clearly not their concern. Instead they are calling for a tightening up on private clinics - so that women who have to turn to the private sector because of the utter failure of the Labour Government to ensure the effective implementation of the 1967 Act are left without any facilities at all. Enforced motherhood is their watchword.
"Surely if you kill a man's child that is the penultimate step to the ultimate step to the ultim ate emasculation - to me castration or the male nimsels.
LeO ADSE The supporters of the White Bill profess concern for doctors who are forced' to give abortions, but in the same breath try to force their backward views on women. And it is certain that one of the major problems with the 1967 Act - the sabotage by doctors who simply refuse to implement even its restricted provisions - is not up for discussion by this back-room committee.
The women Labour MP's who have in the past supported actions called by the National Abortion Campaign made clear what their opinion on this vote was. rey Wise pointed out that MPs who supported this reactionary Select Committee 'were flying in the lace of the labour movement all of its women's organisations. and almost unanimous professional opinion. Jo Richardson said it was ironic that MPs had spent so much time in 1975 considering how they could extend women's rights when, on the other hand, the committee had the task of considering a re restriction of these rights.
our these nine wores ae aloo maLe Women Labour MPs on the Select Committee sold out the campaign five months ago when they agreed to the first set of restrictions recommended by the ComIMG member Leonora Lloyd speaking a NAC rally to coincide with debate in Parliament This sell-out helped to disorientate some of the campaigners against White's Bill at a time when clarity was really necessary, and when any infringements on women's rights to abortion should have been taken up and opposed centrally. But the women MPs on the Select Committee, backed up by people like Audrey Wise and Jo Richardson, felt that if they let these "few restrictions' go by then the big threat the White Bill appear.
Now the chickens have come home to rOOSt. The White Bill is back on the agenda, and women's rights are being whittled away by these less important restrictions as well as by the massive decline in abortion facilities through the Government's policy of slashing the NHS budget.
How could the vote in Parliament have gone ornerwise, when these so-called lead ers of the working class failed to provide any lead whatsoever? Even the fight they put up 'in their own house' was not in order they jumped from one argument to another in explaining why the Select Committee should not be re-constituted. Aud- They argued that it was a waste of money at a time when the Government was short of funds. They agreed that it was a matter of "individual conscience, and refused even to demand a vote in the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting called to discuss it let alone arguing it We must see that our nation is governed by men who heed God's laws."
Andrew Bowden (SPUC supporter on the Select Committee).
should be treated as any other issue of vital concern to the working class, with th a 3-line whip. Finally they failed to back the real struggles being launched to defend and extend abortion rights - such as the picket of the AUEW headquarters protesting against the fact that every AUEW-sponsored MP voted for the White Bill Lessons have been learned from this sell-out. The first is that we must step up the campaign for women's abortion rights. In building for the 3 April demonstration called by the National Abortion Campaign every militant in the workers' movement must rally all those who are prepared to for any rise in inflation. would disCuts in health care, cuts in education, cuts in housing spending, cuts in 1½ million unemployed - this has been the message of the Labour Gov since it came to office in 1974. As the capitalist crisis deepens, it is the class which is being forced to pay. And it is women - both at home ar - who are shouldering mucn or the burden or these attacks.
*For an immediate injection of funds into the social services and fo me of socially useful public works, including schools, hospitals and nur extend social services according to need, not profit. *Protect social se living standards through a nil-norm threshold which automatically com * For national and local workers enquiries into cing and organisation of public services as the first step to prepare the social services based on the needs of the whole working class *For fre nursery facilities; abortion and contraception, free and safe, on deman an end to all private practice inside and outside the NHS; for the natio without compensation of all drug, health and education supply indust HA Despite this lobby, Jo Richardson's Bill to protect battered wives was
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tionary Select Committee on abor- Their votes have put James