How we will win the war against anti-choice bigots

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On Saturday, June 15 (the day before Fathers Day), I was at Planned Parenthood at 6:30 a.m., along with 85 others to defend the clinic from a threatened attack of Operation Rescue (OR). That's the anti-choice, neo-fascist band of hoodlums which tries to stop women from exercising their legal right to choose. Fathers Day, we figured, would be the perfect day for them to attack women and try to deny us our rights.

We stood around drinking coffee and eating a variety of baked goods donated to clinic defenders by local bakeries. Then the day went like this:

Ellen, the representative of Planned Parenthood, thanks everyone for showing up and gives us the latest information on OR and general information about the latest attack on abortion rights. She asks how many were new to clinic defense, and almost 25 young women and men raise their hands.

Lisa from the National Organization for Women's Reproductive Rights Committee speaks. She explains S.F. NOW's leading role in clinic defense.

Because there are so many new people, we go through actual defense training and, as usual, Joni Jacobs does this part. (Joni is also the Socialist Action candidate for mayor of San Francisco. She is the only candidate that has personally defended our clinics almost from the beginning of the attacks by OR.)

Everyone then settles down to await the arrival of the social neanderthals. But on this day, they do not show.

Clinic defenders in the Bay Area have beaten the socks off of OR no matter where they struck and have out-mobilized them. in almost every encounter.

Now, however, the Supreme Court along with politicians from both capitalisi parties are working overtime to accomplish what OR was unable to do; this time to destroy abortion rights through the courts and state and national legislatures.

Everyone on the clinic defense line is mad as hell at the recent Supreme Court decision to place a gag on doctors at federally funded clinics, and the Louisiana legislature's outlawing of the right to choose.

At every level, it seems, there are evil, narrow minded, arrogant bigots who are trying to rob women of their natural right to determine their reproductive lives. And when we read recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action, illegal search and seizure, and workers' health rights, we know that it is not just women's rights that are at stake but the rights of all victims of capitalist injustice.

Lessons from history

It is good to take some lessons from our history. How did women win the right to vote and workers win the right to organize into unions?

They fought back the only way a majority can—in massive demonstrations and strikes that forced the monsters of that day to change the laws in favor of the majority. In the 1900s, women marched, demonstrated, went on hunger strikes, and in general-told the courts and judges that their law's were unjust and would not be tolerated. This is how women won the right to vote; it was not granted out of the goodness of the THANDELSMAN • NEXT VECAL AFORTION 250 MIZ rulers' hearts.

And in the 1930s, it was illegal to organize a union or go on strike. Workers were jailed, fired, blackballed, and murdered because they wanted better wages, hours, and working conditions. But they won these basic democratic and human rights by organizing massive demonstrations, strikes, and sit-ins.

Before the 1950s, the Supreme Court and legislatures in many states said that segregation was legal. There were "white-only" water fountains, toilets, schools, bus and train waiting rooms. In many states, Blacks had to stand in the back of buses and even—in this "land of the free"-were denied the right to vote!

So Black men, women and children organized massive marches. They boycotted, struck, and refused to obey unjust laws by the millions. This is the way they got rid of the "lily-white" Jim Crow laws and scared the hell out of racists everywhere.

All of our rights, all of our human needs, have been won through struggle. And that's why we must organize as women, organize our allies in communities, counties, and states and get back to the streets.

We have to tell the black-robed, hand-picked judges that we will not abide by unjust laws. Our bodies belong to us. Not the church, not the state, women will decide their fate!

"When juries are allowed to set the evidence of the crimes committed by contra supporters, they convict them," he said. "By keeping the evidence away from juries, the judicial branch is actively abetting an assault upon our democratic system. The American people are losing control of the people who are supposed to serve uS.

Sheehan said that it is now clear that the judicial branch cannot be expected to resolve this issue. "We have an executive branch that is directly involved in criminal activities, a Congress that has deliberately failed in its investigation of those crimes, and now the judicial branch is actively obstructing-rather than aiding— the effort of private citizens who are trying to do what work the government should be doing," said Sheehan.

"The Christic Institute will continue to fight—in all available arenas-to make sure that the truth about Iran-contra is told. The American people must insist that our government act truthfully and honestly to bring these people to justice."

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By Sylvia Weinsteir

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