March for Women's Lives on May 16 gains support

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2 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1987 CINCINNATI-On May 16, pro-choice activists will be here for an important regional March for Women's Lives. The National Organization for Women (NOW) has organized this parade and rally, which demands an end to violent attacks on abortion clinics. NOW wants to ensure that abortion is kept safe and legal.

Since 1984, over 40 abortion clinics have been hit with arson or bomb attacks nationally. Only half these cases have been solved. Ohio clinics are a favorite target. Seven clinics have been attacked, and not one case has been solved.

In December 1985, two abortion clinics were firebombed here in Cincinnati. In February, an unexploded pipe bomb was discovered at the temporary quarters of the relocated Planned Parenthood clinic. Pro-choice activists are demanding government protection from these attacks and a thorough investigation into past incidents.

Each Saturday, a mob of Bible thumpers surrounds the Cincinnati clinic. Patients must run the gauntlet of their vicious remarks and hideous picket signs. NOW raised over $35,000 to help replace the burned-out clinic.

Right-wing groups often allege that the vast majority of the population does not support a woman's right to choose abortion. Their claims have been contradicted, however, by numerous surveys and by the outpouring of some 150,000 who turned out for NOW's national Marches for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles in March 1986.

Nevertheless, the right-wingers have been SOMEONE YOU LOVE MAY NEED A CHOICE Pro-Choice Parade & Rally Speakers: Sheri O'Dell, National NOW vice-pres.;

Bill Baird, 20-year veteran for reproductive rights;

Sally Bingham, writer;

and Sara Beth Eason, 12-year-old schoolgirl expelled from Catholic school for pro-choice views.

Cincinnati-May 16 emboldened by the lack of visibility of pro-choice forces, which have shied away from organizing counter-protests in front of the clinics. May 16 will be the opportunity for ILLEGAL ABORTIONS * KILL WOMEN pro-choice activists in the Ohio-Great Lakes region to make our voices heard.

United action

All the major pro-choice forces in the Cincinnati area are united in the May action.

Planned Parenthood (PP) director Ann Mitchell will be speaking at the rally. Although PP has continued to provide needed reproductive health care and education, it has not mobilized its supporters into public activities. Instead, PP has relied on getting court injunctions limiting picketing by the "right-to-life" forces.

The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) opened an office in Cincinnati in January. Staffperson Debbie Jackson will address the rally.

In January, NARAL sponsored a tour for Bill Baird, a veteran reproductive-rights activist. Baird spoke on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which recognized that a woman has a legal right to abortion. He will also speak at the May 16 rally.

NARAL has organized picket lines to expose fake clinics that pose as medical facilities but are actually fronts which try to scare women away from genuine abortion clinics. Over 200 such clinics exist across the country.

The major focus for NARAL-Ohio has been lobbying for a resolution in the state legislature urging enforcement of existing laws and condemning violence against abortion clinics.

The Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (R-CAR) is a group of Protestant and Jewish leaders who seek to counter the anti-choice fanatics' claim to a monopoly on spiritual insight. They oppose any effort to enact abortion laws "which would impose on all Americans a particular religious doctrine." Their support for May 16 is welcome.

As the largest and best-known feminist group in the country, NOW is best able to mobilize the majority sentiment for women's rights into action. The May 16 parade and rally in Cincinnati is an example of the kind of nationwide response that is needed to counter right-wing and government attacks on abortion rights.

Closing date: April 17, 1987 Editor: ALAN BENJAMIN Asst. Editor: MICHAEL SCHREIBER Staff: Paul Colvin, Suzanne Forsyth, May May Gong, David Kirschner, Hayden Perry, Joe Ryan, Carole Seligmand Kwame M.A. Somburu, Sylvia Weinstein.

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... April 25 protests Local 6 has been a steadfast supporter of Mobilization for and Justice because of employer attacks on their union.

March 19 demonstration at Greyhound terminal in Chicago protesting Samix.

AUTE mass firing of long-term union workers 129 ONE acock Socialist Action/Tina ANURYANT S.F. ILWU Peace, Jobs (continued from page 1: “U.S. resists full sanctions against S. African apartheid”) presidents is historic. It indicates the enormous pressure coming from labor's rank-and-file members, who want to take a stand and voice their opposition to the war and austerity policies of this government.

Contrary to the position recently expressed by AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, the vast majority of working people in this country-union-organized or not-do not support President Napoleon Duarte and his so-called "democratically elected government of El Salvador"-better known as the "death-squad government."

The American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), the official foreignpolicy arm of the AFL-CIO, has launched a major campaign within the labor movement against the revolutionary gov -ernment of Nicaragua and against the nonAIFLD unions in El Salvador-falsely accusing them of "terrorism." AIFLD is funded by the U.S. State Department.

AIFLD's baseless charges against Salvadoran unionists have been used by Duarte's death squads to justify the brutal repression and torture of union members and their families.

The AIFLD/AFL-CIO top officials have also attempted to prevent labor from endorsing and participating in the April 25 antiwar protests—but with no success. The majority antiwar sentiment is too deep for Kirkland's "red-baiting" efforts to be effective. [See article on back page.] Growing anti-concessions mood Working people are also beginning to fight back against the concessions demands of the bosses.

The strike of the Hormel P-9 workers in Despite the attacks leveled against the Hormel strikers by the top national AFL-CIO labor officials, over 3000 union locals donated money and supplies to the struggle. They were inspired by the determination of the strikers to resist employer takebacks and government intervention.

The 42,000 USX steelworkers who were locked out by the company when they resisted a $3.50-per-hour pay cut also put up a valiant fight to defend their standard of living. Steelworkers have been forced to make concessions of $1.8 billion-and still thousands of jobs have been lost. The USX workers have had enough of concessions.

Today, General Motors has announced plans to close down 11 production and assembly plants nationwide, resulting in the loss of some 30,000 jobs.

GM's concessions demands recently forced a strike by 9000 members of UAW Local 574 in Pontiac, Mich. Local 574 won the strike sign that when a union stands strong, it cannot be defeated. Similar anti-concessions rumblings are occurring in other GM plants across the country. [See article page 6.] Bureaucratic misleadership But, unfortunately, American workers are shackled by a bureaucratic misleadership.

The labor bureaucracy in this country has been historically responsible for many of the setbacks suffered by the labor movement. Our top labor officials have time and time again put the interests of American big business ahead of the interests of their own members.

In the case of the Hormel strikers, the leadership of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW)—

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(Socialist Action