'Any time anyone's rights are in jeopardy of being lost, it's every person's concern'

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La Mindes, President, NARAL Ohio: 'April 9 March is in defense of women's reproductive lives' 8 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1989 The following interview with Shirley Rosser, president of Cincinnati N.O.W., was conducted by Margaret Kelly. Rosser is the first Black president of the Cincinnati N.O.W. chapter. She is also a pipefitter and a member of Local 392 of the Pipefitters Socialist Action: Shirley, at every opportunity you have encouraged participation in the April 9 march. Why is this demonstration so important?

Shirley Rosser: The demonstration is important for all people regardless of what their major issue is. Any time anyone's rights The following interview with Paula Mindes, president of NARAL Ohio, was conducted in Cleveland by Shirley Pasholk. NARAL Ohio is the statewide affiliate of the National Abortion Rights Action League.

Socialist Action: How did you first become involved in the pro-choice Paula Mindes: In 1972, I joined a local women's crisis center in Ann Arbor, Mich., as a volunteer and phone counselor. Mostly what we were doing was counseling women who wanted abortions. Of course, at that time abortions were illegal.

We referred a certain number of people to New York state and Washington, D.C., the nearest locations where abortion was accessible. That was really quite an ordeal because women didn't necessarily want to go alone to a strange city to have a scary procedure done.

Women had a hard time getting off work or, if they were young and living at home, successfully explaining to their parents why they were going to disappear for a period of 24 hours or more. Then they had the expense of getting themselves-and possibly a companion-to this place. So it was really something that was accessible to women who were able to make the arrangements and had the finances. It was not accessible to quite a lot of women.

When we think about abortion becoming illegal again, people have to remember that whole underground network. Whenever an activity is illegal, there's a social stigma attached to it. We're going to force a lot of people to think of themselves as criminals for trying to take control of their own destinies. S.A: You've researched the so-called Right to Life movement and debated their are in jeopardy of being lost it's every person's concern. And that is one of the things that I have tried to stress to other organizations-that united we are a greater force.

S.A.: What is your sense of support for the march—particularly in the Black community and the labor movement?

Rosser: Support for the march is really broad-based, and the variety is great. People are concerned. University and high-school students have been especially supportive. As far as the African-American community, I don't know what our numbers will look like. One has to understand the history of the women's movement and the idea that most women's organizations have been predominantly white. There has not always been an outreach to include African-American women. So that is a task that any women's organization really has to look at. One thing that is positive is that by my being elected the first African-American president of the Cincinnati N.O.W. chapter, many African-American women are now looking and saying, "I think I want to belong to this group." People identify with what they see; if they don't see a reflection of themselves there, why should they join that organization, even though the issues involved are also their issue?

S.A.: I understand that the Minnesota AFL-CIO has endorsed the march. As a trade unionist yourself, do you see the union and the women's movement working together more in the future?

Rosser: I would hope so. What organizations have to do more of—including the AFL-CIO, N.O.W., and other groups—-is more networking. We tend to stay within our own little circle of people. We tend not to spill into their movement, to support them, and in turn you don't always get an open kind spokespeople. What are some of their recent initiatives?

Mindes: I was on a program recently with Patrick Perotti, an attorney and the local vice president of the "Right to Life." He's quite slick and does a couple of things that I think are representative of some increasing sophistication in one wing of the anti-choice He pays quite a lot of lip service to a woman's right of self-determination. He said, and this is almost a direct quote, that he believes fetuses' rights are not more important than women's rights; they are both equally important and women have a right to determine what they do with their lives. Then he added-as long as they don't do it to the baby.

I think this shows "Right to Life" realizes they've got a problem unless they pay lip service to women's right to control their own destinies and hope that people don't realize their actual position is different.

Another example of the increasing slickness of this wing of the movement is the notion of post-abortion syndrome. I find interesting the argument that because women are having problems we should deny them abortions "for their own good." It's only women and minorities who get denied things of support.

S.A.: Currently many young and minority women are suffering terribly from inadequate medical care, poverty wages, and lack of daycare, etc. How do you see N.O.W. attracting these women?

Rosser: I think one of the things that N.O.W. is going to have to do is look at issues that may not be totally related to the general population of women. I think what has to happen is a different kind of emphasis in doing outreach.

When we talk about poor women, uneducated women, we are dealing with women who don't necessarily know what the organization is about, don't really have the time to know what the organization is about because they are busy trying to survive. It gets to the point where poor people or poor women are virtually dependent on the system to decide their destiny, their lives. How do we get these women involved in the organization? How can we ever include everyone if we don't set up a mechanism or provision to make sure they are included in the process? That is the kind of work that not only the women's movement has to do, but also other organizations such as the gay and lesbian movement and the civil rights movement. They have to understand that unless you do outreach and you touch these folks and make them feel like they are a part of it, then why should they come out and support you?

One thing I have always said about AfricanAmerican women is that we have been feminists for years. without calling ourselves that. You will have African-American women who will say, "I am not a feminist," and I will say, "You really are. You have been one all your life." I think one of the major things that has to happen to bring in poor women, African-American women, is that they have for their own good. It's around women that we get arguments that are basically emotional smokescreens.

From the point of view of the pro-choice movement, post-abortion syndrome is irrelevant. The fact that some women have difficulty with abortions has nothing to do with the fact that all women ought to continue to have the choice of whether they have a baby and when. No one says because women have post-partum depression, they shouldn't have babies.

S.A.: Lately we've heard a lot about a new group called Operation Rescue. What do you know about them?

Mindes: National "Right to Life" is not part of Operation Rescue. They don't deal with each other. Operation Rescue is the militant and predominantly fundamentalist Protestant wing of the anti-choice movement.

Essentially what they do is blockade abortion clinics. They tend to bus themselves around a lot from one city to another. Sometimes they're able to pick up additional people from a local fundamentalist college, but for the most part it's the same relatively small group.

Operation Rescue is getting a tremendous amount of media coverage. Their aim is to prevent particular abortions. Like the other S.A.: In every poll the majority of people in this country indicate their support for the ERA and a woman's right to choose. Why do you think we continue to have to fight for these rights?

Rosser: Our society has dictated for hundreds of years that the man is the head of the house, he makes the decisions, so it gets into that kind of thinking around not just the issue of abortion, but any issue.

You see the same thing around civil rights. White males feel they should make the decisions about civil rights, not AfricanAmerican people. So it is an issue of who has been in power for hundreds of years in this country and no one ever wants to give up power.

So affirmative action is never ever given— it is taken. And that is what we have to do in the women's movement, we have to take it. If we sit around and wait for someone to give it to us we are sadly mistaken. The numbers that come out in D.C. are going to be an indicator to Congress and the Supreme Court of how supportive people are and who they are going to have to fight. That is why it is important that we show up in numbers,

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