end of the United Nations Decade for Women. Governments will be meeting in Nairobi, mark the end of the decade and to discuss how much they have supposedly done for women in the last ten years, Of course, the realistruggle collective action. This is nowhere more clear than on the issue of the right to abortion and contraception.
In Britain the right of women to control their own bodies has come under renewed attack with the Powell Bill and the Gillick ruiAlthough Powell's Bill was Ing. defeated the government made dear it intends to ahead with its own measures to implement the Warnock report, which defines life as beginning at 14 days, and to reduce the time limit for abortions from 28 to 24 weeks.
JUDITH ARKWRIGHT looks at the mounting worldwide attacks on abortion rights.
Pope John Paul is by now fairly well-known for his extreme views on contraception and abortion. In one talk he declared that sex 'ceases to be an act of love', whenever any kind of birth control is used. Such a view is in direct contradiction with the famous 1968 papal encyclical that in certam cases may not be a 'deadly sin'.
In the context of the renewed anti-abortion offensive, and in the context of an economic crisis. governments around the world are looking toward a strengthening of the family. Control on women's abortion and contraception rights fits in with the need to emphasise women's primary role as that of child-bearer and mother, with the need for women to provide a flexible pool of labour. Racism In Europe, moreover, there is a growing debate on population control which has taken on racist connota• In April 1984 a proposal was adopted by the EEC (from the French 'socialist' government) vestigate ways of promoting a baby boom Europe because declining (European) population.
Attacks on abortion rights have not gone unanswered however, as the following examination of the situation demonstrates In the USA itself in 1984, were an estimated 300 attacks on abortion clinics with at least thirty of those involving fires and bomb attacks. Doctors and nurses working in abortion clinics have been harassed as have the women using them, in a tactic which has become 'sidewalk counselling'.
Women who have had abortions have been telephoned in their own homes Called convictions have been made result of these activities but Catholic priests Catholic-sponsored organisations are known to have been involved. In Alabama recently one Reverend Markley was finally convicted, after two previous acquittals, attacking women's clinic with a sledgehammer. which stated contraception Photo: G M COOKSON to Inof the York, for example, born human there holocaust.
the nation.
The campaign against known dous boost earlier this telephone to abortion Few as stitution.
vincing congress Birmingham involved in the public debate. John O'Connor, the archibishop of New compared the 'murder of one and a half million unlives... " to Hitler's He does not of course mention that the Nazis outlawed abortion and contraception, reducing women to the status of breeders for right to choose was given a tremenpresident Reagan himself spoke by over 70,000 antidemonstrators Washington (the largest number of anti-abortionists ever assembled the capital), assuring them that ne supported an amendment to the conHe has also sponsored the film the Silent Scream aimed at conmembers to vote Clinic against women's abortion rights. women under the age of 18 to notify their parents or get consent before a clinic, hospital or doctor can perform Parental notification statements are already required eight states. Such measures highlight the hypocrisy and irresponsibility of a society which deems that a young woman can be forced into an unwanted pregnancy but that she is too make up her own mind about whether or not to have a child The women's movement in the US has not let such attacks go by without a response. Vigils have been organised at 25 of the clinics most constantly under threat and escort services have been set up to take women to and from the clinics. tivities have also seen organised by Demonstrations other groups such as Abortion Rights Action League and the Coalition to End Violence well as chapters of the National Organisation of Women introduce a change in the country's constitution to protect the rights of the foetus has been defeated by a two majority in a referendum. However, the right wing were able to use the opportunitv of the referen dum to launch a massive propaganda offensive on the issue In its platform address the 'Right to Life' committee which launched the initiative labelled women seeking abortions as 'selfish', saying that any woman who wanted to control her no more than a "modern day witch'.
In Belgium there have been trials
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ty is that anything women have achieved, they have won through