U.S. gov't set to step up attacks on abortion rights

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Over 60,000 attended Yankee Stadium rally for Nelson Mandela on June 21. (See story below.] Bush seeks You can't get a silk purse from a sow's ear. Likewise, expecting Bush to choose a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court who will vigorously uphold women's rights under the Constitution is naive. But no one should take lightly the scrutiny of New Hampshire nominee David H. Souter by women anxious to defend rights we still have-especially the right to abortion.

''This is the most divisive issue facing the county since slavery," lamented Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, revealing more about the abortion issue than perhaps he wanted to. Like abolition, the fight to keep abortion safe and legal is one that pits the women's rights movement against reactionary "states' rights" advocates who want to chip away at our rights state by state.

Before the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Missouri Webster case (which allowed states to restrict abortion), an editorial in the National NOW Times argued that the Supreme Court was not immune to political pressure. History has shown this to be true. A massive movement expressing the will of the people can force the court to bend to pressure for reforms.

Remember, prior to the rise of the powerful industrial union movement in the 1930s, a multitude of laws prohibited unionization. These were obliterated by an irrepressible mass movement—not because the judges, who are committed to the status quo, had a change of heart. They simply realized that if they didn't make concessions to the workers they might be swept aside entirely, and the capitalist system along with them.

The Court could have thrown out Roe v. Wade altogether were it not for the unpreceAFEO 150LO.

UFOr ALLA VOL, 8, No. 8 DR SAL.

HESSIR ON AUGUST 1990 50 CEN The National Organization for Women (NOW), the largest feminist organization in the United States, held its national conference June 29-July 1 in San Francisco. Some 2500 people participated, with about 980 delegates representing NOW's over 800 chapters.

NOW took a step back at the conference from the militant, independent stance by which it had earned the leadership of the pro-choice movement. After mobilizing the largest women's rights demonstrations ever held (on April 9 and Nov. 12, 1989) the NOW leadership failed to call another national action and declined to allow a resolution which called for such an action to reach the floor of the conference.

The San Francisco conference was dominated by the November 1990 elections, with appearances by gubernatorial candidates Dianne Feinstein (California), Evelyn Murphy (Massachusetts), and others. Several candidates for public office also spoke at the short pro-choice rally organized for the noon hour of Saturday, June 30, at Union Square near the conference hotel.

In the absence of any call by the NOW leadership for unified national actions in response to the continuing attack on abortion rights, the elections loomed as the main project of NOW.

Third party discussion

The daily news media's coverage of the conference focused attention on NOW's discussions of a new political party separate (continued on page 4, in “Trotsky books published in USSR; special publishing fund”)

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NICARAGUA See pp.8-9

NOW backs off from calling mass actions