Abortion rights under attack

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...Lessons of Greyhound strike By DIANNE FEELEY and ANN MENASCHE Jan. 22 marks the lith anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. This victory was largely the result of the organizing efforts of a powerful Women's Liberation movement, which emerged in the late 60s and early 70s. The women's movement took up the cause of abortion rights as a key element in the fundamental right of women to decide if and when to bear children.

Since this victory, the right wing, with the indispensable help of Democratic and Republican legislators and the courts, has attempted to whittle down this victory and transform it as quickly as possible into defeat. These so-called right-tolife forces have employed a variety of tactics in their attempts to remold public opinion: sensational blown-up pictures of fetuses and references to fetal personhood, harassment of women who seek abortion, blocking the establishment of abortion facilities, and placing under a virtual state of siege health care facilities that provide abortion. They have introduced into Congress, so far unsuccessfully, various human life amendments that would outlaw abortion altogether.

Their most effective tool to date, however, has been use of a divide-andconquer strategy, reducing access to abortion by attacking the rights of the most vulnerable groups of womenespecially poor women and teen-agers. In this way, large sections of the women's movement could be lulled into remaining demobilized, since they could still obtain abortions, even if other women could not.

Legislative attacks on access Since 1976, Congress has voted annually to ban Medicaid funds for abortion with certain limited exceptions. The U.S Supreme Court in the McCrae decision upheld the Hyde Amendment in 1980. Currently, the right wing is attempting to cut off federal funding for abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

At the present time, over six years after the death of Rosie Jimenez, the first woman to die as a result of the cutoff of Medicaid funding for abortion, only 12 states are still funding abortions for poor women. The Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that there are 125,000 serious medical complications and 125-250 deaths per year due to the cutoff of Medicaid funding for abortion (New England Journal of Medicine 6/29/78, 9/27/79).

More and more poor women, many of whom are nonwhite, are forced to risk their lives at back-alley abortionists or bear unwanted children.

At its annual conference in October 1983, the Reproductive Rights National Network (R2N2) vowed to launch a campaign to restore Medicaid funding to poor women. Such a campaign would be invaluable to pro-choice forces. It would demonstrate the commitment of the movement to defending the rights of the most oppressed women as the best way to defend the rights of all women to Over the last several years anti-abortionists have attempted to eliminate.coverage for abortions from federal employee's insurance policies, unless the woman's life was endangered. In mid-November the Senate passed the bill by a 44-t0-43 vote. Although the bill will be voted on again in February and may fail the second time around, its initial passage indicated the precarious situation on the legislative front, despite continued public support for a pro-choice position. Similar laws have passed, including a bill that denies female dependents of military personnel government funded abortion under most circumstances, and another that prohibits using foreign aid for abortion in family planning programs.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on 10 Socialist Action January 1984 a number of attempts to restrict access to abortion passed by state and local legislatures. In 1976, the Court ruled that the requirement for spousal consent was unconstitutional. Last June, in the far-reaching Akron decision, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional provisions like the following:

- All abortions for women more than 12 weeks pregnant must be performed in hospitals. (Such legislation sought to deny women abortions by making them too expensive to finance. Abortions performed in hospitals cost significantly more than does the cost of a clinic visit.)

- So-called informed consent provisions requiring that doctors must provide specific information to women seeking abortion, including showing pictures of the fetus at various stages of development. Under most provisions, the doctor must state that the fetus is a "human life." Such legislation was designed to persuade and intimidate women seeking abortions, not to inform them.

- 24-hour waiting periods between the time a woman signed a consent form and the performance of the abortion. (Such legislation imposed a severe hardship on women who had to travel significant distances to the clinic or hospital.)

The Court did, however, uphold a Missouri statute requiring parental consent for minors seeking abortion. This decision was based on the fact that the state provided a procedure known as "judicial bypass" for finding minors "mature" and for determining an "immature minor's" best interests, supposedly giving another option to minors who cannot tell their parents. The effect of this decision is that parental notification or consent statutes will remain intact in 11 of the 18 states that had such statutes.

The effect of these laws on teen-agers can be devastating. Only one in five sexually active teen-agers consistently uses birth control, according to a national study by Johns Hopkins University. When researchers asked teen-agers why they had not sought birth control information, half cited fear of parental discovery as a major reason for delaying their visit to a clinic or doctor.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, approximately 39 percent of the 2 million young women turning 14 in 1983 can be expected to have at least one pregnancy while still in their teens; about 300,000 can be expected to have at least one abortion. Approximately 41 percent of all pregnant teen-agers choose abortion. In fact, 30 percent of all abortions are obtained by teen-agers.

In Minnesota in 1981, the year its parental consent statute took effect, the number of abortions obtained by minors was cut by one-third, despite the fact that the statute contained a judicial bypass provision. Clearly, the requirements for parental consent will will only amount to forcing teen-agers to bear unwanted children.

Physical intimidation

In addition to legislative attempts to restrict access to abortion, the "right to life" forces have carried on a campaign of harrassment, violence, and physical intimidation against women seeking abortion, medical personnel, and the clinic facilities themselves.

The latest target is the Feminists Women's Health Center in Everett, Washington. Local feminists opened the health care facility after determining that nearly 2,000 women were forced to leave the county each year to obtain an abortion. Since the clinic opened at the end of the summer, the clinic's phone lines have been deliberately jammed tionists.

Each Saturday, when abortions are performed, the right-wingers show up in force. They include the Knights of Columbus, Women Exploited by Abortion, the Christian Coalition, and the Concerned Citizens. They are particularly insulting to the Native American women who support and use the clinic.

Since September, the staff and clinic supporters have mobilized a defensive picket. On Nov. 19, 250 pro-choice supporters were able to out-mobilize the (Continued from page 12) emerging militant wing of the trade union movement.

The capitalist-owned and -controlled Democratic Party cannot be the instrument for mobilizing workers in their class interests. Support to such politicians compels the unions to cover up and prettify the antilabor policies of capitalist politicians. The union bureaucrats even adapt to the racist and sexist prejudices of "their" candidates. Sins are portrayed as virtues. The Democrats' enemies are represented as labor's enemies. Their friends are palmed off as labor's friends.

The most outstanding example of the fallacy of the capitalist "friend of labor" was President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The labor bureaucracy, in conning the American workers into supporting this skillful but treacherous capitalist politician, was also compelled to cover up and support racist lynch-law politicians like Lyndon B. Johnson (later also elected president of the United States with labor support). Both Democratic presidents maneuvered the American people into wars to achieve the imperialist aims of American capitalism. right-wingers, who gathered for a rally and prayer vigil. This small victory was soon cut short, however.

On Dec. 3, a fire destroyed the center's lab and staff room, causing approximately $40,000 damage. The clinic's response was to pull together a broadly sponsored news conference. The clinic expects to be back in operation within the month. Organizations ranging from the Everett National Organization for Women, Radical Women, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Washington State National Abortion Rights Action League expressed their support.

The pro-choice climate Support for abortion rights grew dramatically with the pro-choice campaign of the women's movement. As recently as 1968, only 15 percent of the population supported a woman's right to abortion. By 1969, the figure rose to 40 percent; by 1971 it stood at 50 percent. Four years later, in 1975, the figure rose to 75 percent. And despite their anti-abortion agitation, the right-wingers have been unsuccessful in reversing this pro-abortion sentiment. Various polls taken over the last several years indicate that people support a women's right to choose by a 75 percent to 81 percent margin.

The legalization of abortion in 1973 made the procedure both safe and much more accessible. Annually, more than a million and a half women chose to have an abortion in the United States. The rate of abortion is twice as high for black women as it is for white women. The majority of those who seek abortions are teen-agers and women over 40—those who experience the highest risk of complications during pregnancy. Legalization of abortion has made abortion available to these women, who have the greatest need to control their reproductive lives. Yet, the attacks on accessibility have placed those rights in grave danger.

Despite majority support for the right to choose, some of this support is "soft." Abortion rights foes have been able to take advantage of backward social attitudes of large sections of the population on such issues as free medical care and teen-agers right to sexuality, to whittle away at legal abortion. And that is why it is incumbent upon the pro-choice movement to defend the right of the most oppressed women and to educate the public about why their rights must be safeguarded.

Today we are being set up once again to put political confidence in another capitalist presidential candidate. Openly antilabor Republican President Reagan is utilized to pass off another Democratic political swindler as a knight in shining armor to wage a battle 'in defense of labor." All hopes to beat back the current antilabor offensive are placed in a Walter Mondale, or even a Jesse Jackson, both of whom were typically stone silent durng the Greyhound Corporation's ruthless attack on working people.

There is no force capable of defending labor's interests except the independent force of labor itself and its real allies. Without such an independent working-class political orientation, there cannot be a consistent fight waged for workers' needs and interests. A labor party, based on the existing union movement, will be a means for uniting all progressive forces and carrying the struggle of the working class forward to a final victory through the establishment of a workers' government.