THIS called by their rights. sale in shops, and Wales 17,000 -women in particular. provide maci ther.
SUNDAY thousands of young people will expose the lie that people like Victoria Gillick — and Margaret Thatcher — actually want to protect their interests. force The message of the young people who will lead the demonstration • the Campaign Against Gillick Ruling will be that it is young people themselves - not parents, lawyers, doctors and certainly not the Tories - who know what's in their best interests. No amount of propaganda about good old-fashioned family values will convince young people who have been through six years of Tory Sos and 1.3 million senistered million registered youth unemployed that the Gillick ruling is anything but an attack on The 'Gillick Ruling' was the decision of the high court in December 1984 in favour of Victoria Gillick's claim that no treatment or advice on contraception or abortion be given to any of her daughters without her consent. In practice this has meant that since the court decision it has been illegal for doctors, or anyone else, to give anyone under 16 advice about contraception without parental consent. Books on sex ple education which are freely available for and sex education in schools, can be declared illegal.
The Gillick ruling has nothing to do peopthe sapportecting conce buDDorter Gillick sometimes talk as if it was contraception that invented sex! Restricting contraception and abortion won't prevent teenage sex — or youth radicalisation, opposition to the Tories, and defence of youth rights and all those other thinthe fact that there hat beeve.
fact that there dramatic fall so far this year in the number of people under 16 who attended family planning clinics in England — well down on last year's • doesn't indicate mass youth celibacy. It means that there will be more tear and ignorance sex, more unwanted pregnancies, and more illegal backstreet abortion and suffering on the part of young, working class.
Those willing to abortion facilities will make a lot of money out of this suffering. The likely delay until September of any decision by the House of Lords over the Gillick appeal means drawing this state of uncertainty out still furMrs Gillick won't lose too much sleep over this however. Her campaign has nothing to do with the actual problems facing young people. It is to do with patching up and preserving an ailing social and economic system. To attempt to deal with this crisis the government is obliged to attack the most basic rights.
Socialist Action rights of women and young people in particular. And to attack the most basic elements of control women and young people have over their place in the work society generally. The Gillick ruling fulfills this function in two ways.
Firstly, it is part of a mounting attack on the existing rights of all women to abortion and contraception. Since the defeat of the Corrie Bill there has been a long slow build up of attacks on the rights of women to control their own fertility, and thereby have some measure of control over their destiny. Gillick is the latest but not the last in the Secondly, Gillick is part of a general attack on the rights of young people The ruling actually means that people under 16 now have no legal rights to make any decisions for themselves. Campaign The context for these attacks are more than 1 million youth registered unemploved. a reduction in unemo of. ment benefit for the under 25s as part of Fowler's welfare benefits cuts, no social security money for 16 and 17 year olds who refuse a YTS place, and an attack on housing benefit for young peoYoung people are to be cheap to be forced to live at home. and to have no legal rights under the age of 16. This is wrapped up in protec ting the 'family' which is to fill the gap in the welfare services and police the ac. tivities of youth.
Another factor motivating Thatcher is the memory of thousands of young people who mobilised behind the miners during the last year. This unity, strength, and defence of the interests of the working class and oppressed provides the key to the way to defeat attacks like the Gillick ruling.
The National Abortion Campaign previoudy sauweu mal i was DOSSIDH to defeat attacks on the rights of women, such as the Corrie by drawing on the united strength of the women's and labour movements. The miners showed that it was possible to strengthen the whole working class by uniting and supporting the interests of all the oppressed.
To defeat Gillick — and the further attacks on abortion rights which are still to come - means following these examples. The broadest possible united campaign is required This means rebuilding the base of the National Abortion Campaign. It means in particular that the Labour Party Young Socialists, as the main political voice of vouth. has to be forced to change its present purely token support for the campaign against Gillick. This in turn means a fight to replace the present leadership of the LPYS with one which understands the links between all these attacks on young people - rather than one which counterposes simply fighting against YTS to fighting for abortion
THE ARTICLE by Dick Carter 'The nature of World War Two' (SA 101) is one of the most bizarre to appear in Socialist Action.
Socialist Action 21 June 1985 The article is contradictory and confused about did. And this enabled the Stalinist parties to strangle Le Dos -war revollar wave, which in turn helped