Women's Today

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SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1989 5 Many delegates were young women who had recently joined NOW and had assumed reproductive freedom to be a birthright. Many others, experienced activists, were looking for a new strategy to reverse the recent series of defeats suffered by women.

The NOW leadership traditionally has had a strategy of supporting Democratic Party politicians who pay lip service to women's rights. But the pressure of the membership is causing them to respond in a more militant fashion to these defeats.

Since the historic April 9, 1989, march in Washington, D.C.—which mobilized over 600,000-NOW has grown dramatically. It has close to 200,000 members.

Delegates from around the country reported that thousands of women have contacted their chapters seeking to join and find out what they can do. Since the Websterdecision, NOW's volunteer staff has had trouble keeping up with the flood of phone calls.

Population control?

The majority of women who attended the conference want to fight for the democratic right to control their bodies. Unfortunately, NOW President Molly Yard's keynote address linked abortion rights to population control in the context of concern for the environment.

Claiming a need to change the argument for legal abortion in order to "reach out to new allies," Yard said that legal abortion is necessary to stop "the population bomb [that] is accelerating rapidly and, if not checked, will destroy this planet."

"There is a direct connection between the environment, population explosion and the need to stabilize population growth," said Yard. "We must have a two-child family worldwide, and to achieve it we must have family planning and birth control."

This stand represents a retreat from defending abortion rights on the basis of women's democratic rights. Many of the delegates were not happy with this population control focus, which has racist overtones.

Advocating population control as a solution for the destruction of the environment blames the victims of poverty and ignores planet.

Dissatisfied with Moreover, Yard stressed the need to mobilize people to continue voting for "pro-choice" candidates on the local and national level. These candidates are part of a political party—the Democratic Party-that has continuously betrayed the women's rights movement. This fact has become increasingly troublesome to many members.

At various workshops the membership expressed more enthusiasm for building protests and coalitions than for getting out the votes for Democrats.

At the "Who's Invited to the Party?" political workshop, Molly Yard and Eleanor Smeal, head of the Fund for the Feminist Majority, opened what they called an "exploratory" discussion on forming a feminist party.

They stated that they were "flabbergasted," when the over 200 delegates in the room demanded that the convention go on record in favor of organizing a third party immediately. "We thought we were writing a resolution for you to explore," Smeal said, "we didn't know you wanted it right now."

One delegate said, "I'm tired of trying to change the friggin' Democratic Party." Another delegate, a member of the Democratic Party Executive Committee of Dade county, Fla., stated that working in the Democratic Party "was a waste of time."

Socialist Action columnist, Sylvia Weinstein, a NOW delegate from San Francisco, received a standing ovation in the workshop when she stated that the only way women have ever won their rights is when they ordedicated to equality for women."

"Not a states' rights issue"

NOW Vice President Sheri O'Dell introduced a "Freedom Campaign for Women's Lives," which called for the Nov. 12 demonstration in Washington, D.C. Some delegates opposed this plank, saying that a national march conflicted with their campaign to get local Democrats elected.

Both the national NOW leadership and the overwhelming majority of delegates in the room opposed this retreat to a state-by-state fight. "The fight for abortion rights is not a states' rights issue," said O'Dell, comparing the women's rights struggle to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. "States rights is a code word for segregation."

In the Southwest Regional Caucus, Janet Cook, California NOW action coordinator, further explained the need for a national focus. "We lost the ERA when we went stateby-state," she said. She contrasted this defeat to the victory of the anti-Vietnam War movement, which kept its fight on the federal level.

Other delegates emphasized that their chapters were clamoring for a national march to keep the focus on the federal level, and said the time to strike was now. The Nov. 12 national march was approved overwhelmingly.

The conference passed resolutions with strong support for the striking Eastern Airlines flight attendants and the Pittston coal miners, affirmative action, the NAACP August 1989 March on Washington, the legal The Fight for Women's Rights Today and Sylvia Weinstein Price: $1.25.

Mail order to: 3435 Army. St. # 308, S.F., CA 94110. Send 65 cents for postage distribution of and further research into the new abortion drug RU486, militant defense of family planning clinics against the terrorist attacks of Operation Rescue, and lesbian and gay rights.

Clearly, the conference was proof that the women's rights movement is not only alive and well, but is ready to fight. All supporters of women's rights should make it a priority to ensure that the Nov. 12 abortion rights demonstration in Washington, D.C. is the largest in history.

Joni Jacobs, Joe Ryan, and Carole Seligman contributed to this article.

Michael Kaufman/Impact Visuals looking to participate, as well as Massachusett's public employee unions, under attack from the state's budget crisis, it promises to be a large and militant outpouring of fightback sentiment.

... Va. miners (continued from page side of the officials. (There have been over 2000 arrests and the UMWA faces fines with a potential cost of $1.4 trillion.)

Although the miners are now hurting Pittston Coal economically, the strike will most likely continue for some time. It will be a test of strength and determination.

Although the strike has now lasted three months, the moral of the strikers remains high. In order to organize the support necessary for victory, the UMWA leadership must demonstrate that it has the same fighting capacity as the membership.