Britain's ruling rich join attack on women's rights :::22 CHOOSE

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LONDON-The struggle to defend women's right to choose is a truly international one. Today, in Britain, the National Abortion Campaign is gearing up for yet another campaign to defend the existing abortion law and to fight the newly arrived Operation Rescue.

In England, Scotland, and Wales, women do not have the right to choose as we know it in the United States. Rather, the governing law, known as the 1967 Act, permits abortion in pregnancies up to 28 weeks. In addition, two doctors must certify that the physical or mental health of the woman or her existing children is at risk, or that, if born, the child would be seriously handicapped.

The majority of all abortions are granted on the basis of the "psychological distress" caused by an unwanted pregnancy. (Although Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, the 1967 Act doesn't apply there. Thus abortion is still illegal!)

Although abortions are available through the National Health Service (NHS), bureaucratic procedures make early abortions difficult. Numerous women report having to wait eight to 12 weeks for an NHS abortion. In many areas, doctors are increasingly refusing to sign the requisite approval for abortions after 12 weeks, forcing women to go outside their own locality or to fee-generating private clinics.

Anti-abortionists have been directly attacking the abortion law since 1975, without success. The National Abortion Campaign (NAC), which was formed the year of the first attack, supports free abortion on demand, but has been in the leadership of the fight to defend the existing law. It has won critical Labour Party and trade-union support for that cause.

Just last year, a bill aimed at criminalizing abortion after 18 weeks (the Alton Bill) was soundly defeated by a broad-based campaign. Fight Alton's Bill groups-which sprang up in every major town-involved local women, students, community activists, and unionists.

New government attacks The attacks women face this year are more diffuse but just as dangerous. The government is expected to seek a reduction in the time limit for abortions from 28 to 24 weeks, on the grounds of claimed developments in fetal viability.

To complicate matters, this restriction is likely to be introduced as an amendment to another government bill which would establish a regulatory scheme research.

At the present time, the legal status of research performed on embryos outside the womb—most of which is done in connection with in vitro fertilization (IVF)— is uncleari The bill would expressly allow such research on embryos up to 14 days old and would establish a licensing authority to regulate this activity.

Many defenders of choice believe some kind of legislation is needed to ensure the continued legality of such research, which is seen as vital to the development of infertility services and to ensuring the health of future babies.

But there are also grave concerns about the bill as it has been outlined. First, adoption of a 14-day limit on research could be used by anti-abortionists to attack the existing abortion law. They have, in fact, announced their intention to do so.

At the same time, the resolution adopted by Julio Etchart/Reflex the conference concluded that "underlying everything should be a positive campaign emphasizing the changes that are needed to ensure that women have the right to choose abortion and have control over their fertility."

In this way, NAC will be able not only to organize the most effective defense of the existing laws, but will at the same time lay the ground work for further advances in women's rights. NAC's membership, which is growing, emerged from its conference ready to fight.

As a spokesperson for the Prolife Group put it, "After all, if we ban experimentation on embryos then it makes a nonsense of the killing of more fully formed fetuses by abortion."

Second, the new scheme would likely discriminate against lesbians and unmarried women by limiting the licensing of IVF facilities to those which serve only "stable," married couples and by criminalizing fertilization performed outside of a licensed facility.

There are other threats as well. Women's access to local, quality abortion services is being called into question by a broader plan to reorganize and begin privatizing the National Health Service, which will inevitably result in lost services and increased charges for women.

At the same time, Operation Rescue (OR) has reared its ugly head in England and Scotland, employing its usual tactics of harassing women seeking abortion services and attempting to block clinic doors (though this latter tactic has so far only been selectively tried, with the most publicized "rescue" drawing only 10 blockaders and 30 to 40 praying supporters).

NAC's uphill battle

At its annual conference, held in London on Oct. 28-29, the National Abortion Campaign (NAC) addressed the question of how the pro-choice movement can mobilize the forces necessary to defeat the array of attacks on women's rights.

These are difficult times to win a fight in Britain, where 10 years of Thatcherism has seen the Labour Party moving steadily to the right. Pro-lifers have been permitted to organize within the party (as LabourLife) and to vote contrary to the pro-choice platform of the party. Certain Labour MPs, who were previously pro-choice, are now reported to be supporting the proposed reduction of the time limit on abortions to 24 weeks.

But NAC sees the 24-week reduction as the thin edge of the wedge, aware that its adoption would embolden anti-abortionists and give momentum to their unrelenting crusade to restrict and reverse women's right to abortion.

For this reason, the NAC conference identified the fight against any time-limit reduction as its top priority. It voted to initiate a new broad-based campaign (similar to Fight Alton's Bill) to mobilize the broadest possible forces in defense of the '67 Act, and to fight for Labour Party support and leadership on this issue.

On the embryo bill, NAC took a stand in favor of embryo research, which results in greater choice for women but is against any time limits and against any discriminatory provision.

NAC also made a commitment to fight Operation Rescue, using whatever tactics' prove most effective against the type of campaign they wage. In November, NAC sponsored the first British anti-OR demonstration and rally to affirm that OR's target town of Stockport is pro-choice.

In addition, NAC pledged to support the fight against NHS cuts and to campaign for early introduction of the French-produced abortion pill RU 486 and for abortion on demand in the first 12 weeks (which a prominent Labour MP is discussing, with the support of a small but growing coalition).

The conference clearly recognized that the current attacks cannot be seen in isolation from one another, and that the specific priorities for work will have to be developed in the course of the struggle.