After April 5: What next in the fight for choice?

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and JONI JACOBS An estimated 750,000 to one million people marched in Washington, D.C., on April 5 to defend abortion rights. This huge mobilization rivals in size the largest of the demonstrations at the height of the U.S. war in Vietnam—demonstrations that had deep and lasting effects on a whole generation of youth.

What will be the impact of the giant pro-choice mobilization of 1992?

The march was massive. The marchers themselves must have been struck by the power of such staggering numbers. This is a period of escalating attacks on working people. (Per-capita income actualiy shrank in 1991, for the first time in nine years.) So it is encouraging that women are fighting back.

Surely the efforts of one million people should cause a change in the government's attack on abortion rights. Unfortunately, the situation is more complicated than the numbers indicate.

A major political message—an erroneous one—was broadcast by the organizers of the April 5 march. That message contradicted the potential power represented by the numbers of the demonstrators. The message was "secure abortion rights by voting for women candidates in 1992.

The evidence of the message was overwhelming. Thousands of marchers carried signs supplied by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) that proclaimed, "We will decide on Nov. 3" (election day).

Candidates for Congress and the Senate from several states paraded across the stage, asking for support in the elections. Dianne Feinstein, California Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, asked the crowd, "Are you ready to march for me in November?"

Carol Moseley Braun, the first African American woman to win the Illinois senatorial Democratic primary, was enthusiastically introduced by Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women. Braun's message was: Democracy and the Bill of Rights are "alive and well"

¡AMERICA because she won her party's nomination.

What's wrong with this vote for choice message? Simply this: The candidates running in the 1992 elections—women and men, Democrats and Republicansdo not represent women's interests. They represent the fat cats who profit from the inequality women suffer.

This simple fact can be seen in the failure of the government at all levels-federal and state—to defend or expand the rights of working people.

The Democrats try to blame the Republicans for the erosion of women's rights. Yet they have enjoyed a 25-year majority in Congress and in most states. Under their majority control, the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated, anti-abortion laws were passed, welfare subsidies for children were cut, and comprehensive child-care legislation was nullified.

Meanwhile both parties voted for military expenditures in the trillions of dollars while human needs went callously neglected. The anti-women policies of the U.S. government are, in their essentials, clearly bipartisan.

Sexism is profitable

The United States economy is based on capitalism, which depends upon dividing workers against each other based on race, gender, and other so-called "natural" boundaries. When women are paid less than men, the bosses keep the difference and make higher profits.

That's why sexism is so difficult to root out—it's profitable, and profit is the motor force of the U.S. economy and politics. Defense of the private profit system is the raison d'etre of both the Democratic and Republican parties. And both parties oppose any inroads into the profitable practice of sexism.

Before American women won even the right to vote, for example, it took massive demonstrations in the streets, a mass Socialist Party, and the international impact of the rights that women won in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution in 1917.

Women won abortion rights in 1973 who profit from the exploitation of women. The interests of women (and all working people) are counterposed to the interests of the ruling rich and corporations.

When the Democrats and Republicans say they represent both working people and their bosses, they are lying. It's impossible to reconcile the competing interests of the iwo classes in one party-working people always lose out. In 1989, one percent of U.S. households (with a net worth of $5.7 trillion) had more wealth than the bottom 90 percent (whose net worth totaled $4.8 trillion). How can one party represent both groups? Impossible!

Even an "independent" third party or "independent" candidate who doesn't clearly break from alliances with the ruling rich is no better than the existing pro-rich parties.

Since women have no independent party to vote for in 1992, the illusion that change will be won through the elections disarms and misorients the women's movement. It does us no good to "stop Bush" when the attack on women's rights is being-and will continue to be-carried out by both the Democrats and Republicans regardless of the outcome of the Admittedly, the women's movement is in a difficult position. On the one hand, no political party exists that can represent its interests. On the other, the movement cannot create such an instrument by itself.

A party that represents the interests of women would also represent all workers male and female, Black, brown and white-as well as the interests of all others who suffer the effects of the profit system.

Forming such a party will involve the traditional organizations of working people-the labor unions-who don't yet agree, unfortunately, that a labor party is needed. Labor must work with women's groups and organizations of the oppressed national minorities to form a political front that can represent them all.

Movement must be independent So what can be done? In the absence of a suitable electoral instrument that expresses the needs of women, several important steps can and must be taken in the fight for women's rights.

Most importantly, the movement must be independent from those who profit from sexism. Besides staying out of Democratic and Republican campaigns, being independent means using strategies independent of the capitalist class, such as street mobilizations.

Massive mobilizations are a key component of an independent movement. They should be organized regularly and coordinat-