Last year more than 50,000 British women were forced to pay out £50 or more to get abortions - an abortion to which they were legally entitled under the 1967 Act, but which was refused by the National Health Service. In fact, the number of women applying for but unable to get an abortion on the NHS rose from under half in 1974 to 52 per cent in 1975. If this is taken with the other much-quoted statistic that the total number of abortions fell in 1975, some idea can be gained of the effect that the cuts in NHS spending are having on the availability of abortion facilities.
After refusing to restore the 1973 cuts of £111 million in the health budget, the Labour Government has extended the Tories' cuts - planning to lop off another £152 million from health spending in 1978/79. Services for women, which have always been a low priority, are being badly hit. Family planning clinics now report waiting times of up to three months. Some areas like Buckinghamshire have completely stopped sterilisation and vasectomy operations except for severe medical reasons.
Provision and extension of abortion facilities has also come under Healey's axe. is considering a reduction in abortions as a money saver; the proposed plans for new out-patient clinics at Charing Cross and She field are being reviewed'; and the new regulations from the Parliamentary Select Committee requiring hospitals which carry out late abortions to have resuscitation equipment means that hospitals without it are proscribed by the cost of such equipment from carrying out these abortions.
CONTRACEPTION The current climate of cuts has also provided a convenient smokescreen for reactionary doctors to hide behind: those who place their own 'moral judgement above that of a women who decides she needs an abortion, and those eager to exploit the inadequacies of the NHS to line their own pockets with a few private abortions.
But the decline in abortion facilities cannot simply be explained as an economy measure. It is cheaper to give women abortions than to provide the necessary NHS services for childbirth and after-care. The total cost of a national network of day care clinics which could provide early safe abortions for every woman wanting one would Oxford Area Health Authority rently paying out £1.8 million a year to doctors as a bribe to give advice on contraception when they should be giving it in any case!
So it's not the cost of abortions that is behind the cutbacks. Rather more important is the impact that the lack of abortion facilities will have on the ability of women to break out of the oppressive confines of their traditional role as wives and mothers putting family and children first.
RESPONSIBILITIES In this respect cuts in abortion facilities fit in exactly with other social service cuts, the brunt of which are being borne directly by women: reduction in nursery provisions; refusal of schools to accept rising fives; loss of jobs at twice the rate of men; and a host of other problems all resulting in women having to shoulder family responsibilities 24 hours a day, isolated in the home, with even less relief than before from the welfare state.
Cuts in facilities in the NHS are just one half of the story of Labour's attacks on abortion. continuing saga of the Select Committee. It is completely in line with the reactionary policies being pursued in general by the present Labour leaders that women should be denied that very basic and necessary right - control over their own fertility - without which they cannot begin to take control of the other aspects of their lives.
Labour's answer to the bosses' crisis is to make the workers pay - and women are paying very dearly. trictions on abortion and cuts in social services will reinforce the oppression of women within the family and weaken the ability of the working class to organise a united fight back. The fight for abortion rights is part of the wider opposition to building up to the anti-working class policies of the Labour Government.
A good opportunity to show this in practice will be for supporters of a women's right to choose to march on the 25 April demonstration against the cuts and private practice in the NHS behind the banner of Free Abortion on Demand on the NHS. Many local NAC groups are already discussing how to mobilise for this. Now is the time to march against the cuts and for abortion rights! Berry Beaumont The other is the ResIn other words, the Tribunal will not be just for the 'committed', but will try to reach thousands of people who are concerned about the increasing restrictions on women's abortion More than a hundred women and men marched through Hackney on Saturday to demand more day care nurseries for under-fives in the area. The march was called by Hackney Nursery Campaign, which is also fighting for parity of pay, conditions and training opportunities for all those who work with under-fives. The campaign was born out of the joint efforts of the Hackney Under-Fives Committee and the Women's Sub-Committee of Hackney Trades Council, which works around the Working Women's Charter. The demand for more nurseries is seen as partic ularly important since it raises the question not only of the moth er's role in the home, but also of a mother's right to work. are 13,500 under-fives in Hackney and a mere 359 council day ies could also be set up in the areas to co-ordinate local actions to build for the Tribunal.
Groups should join in organising the Tribunal on the basis of the polnursery p The c extend pi the Trade North Lal Party. M wandswe statement committ througho
Abortion/Charter 7
----- pull-quotes -----
UR CA demar
#WOr NEE MO N