Thames Regional Health Authority, which proposes the closure of five Epsom hospitals and one in nearby Banstead, is the clearest indication since the election of the callous and brutal way in which the new Thatcher administration intends to treat for the report claim it is a huge step forward in the ferent. It is the clearest exand benefit of those who can attora speculators of the City of there is no doubt that this friends who control Epsom council, will be only THE AGENTS OF BRITISH RULE MAKE THEIR PRESENCE KNOWN TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND encouragement pressured into taking them Those who have no hospitals and whose Social ing nomes THE IRISH PEOPLE DEFEND THEMSELVES sedated by unqualified staff while their fills ring government money has been diverted away the Health Service The loss of jobs involved if the Regional Health Authorities proposals carried out is the other ared glossed over. that the report Over 5000 has people directly employed by the hospitals and union representatives already planning campaign to fight the proposals at all levels.
The unions and their supporters will run the risk of being accused of taking poltical action by certain sections of the trade union leadership if they strike or take any other direct action. They will be oppos key of government's policy will need all the outside support they can get If Chapple, Dutty and Murray won't support workers fighting to defend jobs and public services and would rather go an discuss the TUC's funera with the Chingford undertaker, then let them. But if they expect the rank and file to follow quietly like lambs the slaughter they're going to be in for a nasty shock.
PART ONE IS • KEEPING THE PEACE"
PART TWO,IS OF COURSE TERRORISM
FOR SOME time now the right-wing has been engaging in an offensive to restrict women's abortion rights. fection of the Unborn Child and LIFE in Britain are taking advantage women's increased economic dependence on men to refurbish and revitalise their macabre propaganda. But this offensive is an international one and it requires an international response from women.
A brief review of these attacks will serve highlight this point. In the South of antiabortonists are campaigning for an amendment to the already reacuuld y constitution enshrining the right-to life of the unborn child.
On 5 March in Madrid 150,000 people gathered under the slogan 'No abortion Yes to outside the place visited by the Pope. They were op posing the very limited relaxation in the abortion law being proposed by Spanish government.
Israel the AGUDA, alla mongos right-wing group, succeeded 4 years ago in having the social clause in the abortion law repealed.
Akron anti-abortionists in the USA carried out a wave of violence against abortion clinics. including firebombings Although the Supreme Court ruled on l that some of the Southern states had gone too far in their anti-abortion mania to turn to private clinics and the latest round of swingeing cuts in the NHS will make it even more difeligibility for treatment, as overseas who have been in months are forced to pay charges for medical treatIt's not simply abortion rights that are under attack. abortion comes out of the struggle LICE (Ultraception and this is too under local.
Oxford Health Authority intends to remove contraception from the NHS. The "morning after' pill has been officially approved, but the likes of Keith Joseph who is very concerned about the irresponsible behaviour of young women • atre reluctant lu encourage its use.
Women's access to fertility control is a prime target for Tory privatisation. Rich women will continue to have access to the highest standards tility control. It will be the working class woman who faces the butchery trauma of the backstreet abortionist.
It is with this in mind that we have to view SPUC's latest offering, national newspaper advert headed women nau glass tummies would they ever have abortions?' and their two million leaflets LWO million 'unborn children'.
The Abortion movement has to counter these a cuculo counter them in a far more effective way than the 'Ladies Against Women' (DOV did two weeks ago when SPUC had 20,000 on the SLICCLO We have to crystal e arguments clear. Human beings are socia animals. A woman's life ana ner control over her own body is a right and a that society should fully respect.
To compare the 'rights of the foetus', suggesting that it is simply a smaller version of an adult, to the rights of pregnant only deliberately misleading Is all Insult lo womell as a sex.
Women do not take decisions to have abortions lightly. They are programmed daily to sacrifice themselves their fathers,. brothers, lovers, husbands and sons. When women come to take this decision they come to it because they have no other option.
Adoption why should not alternative. women suffer nine months of pregnancy the psychological pain of giving up their child to satisfy the moral rantings of Mary Whitehouse Lord Longford and the Catholic hierarchy?
Millions of womer who follow the Catholic faith live in fear of their No complacency — we have to fight the anti- abortionists at every stage lives because totalitarian strictures of these bigots. Women don't campaign for laws to sterilise men. Why should right-wing women campaign for laws that force pregnancy on women? If women Take the decision to have an abortion it should be tree ly available, safe and legal.
ter of life and death, it's a question of the dignity and freedom of women's lives, particularly the lives of ordinary women.
The National Abortion Campaign in Britain and the Campaign for Abortion, Sterilisation Contraception have a big task ahead of them.
Socialist Action 22 July 1983 backdown on abortion by the National Executive of the Labour Party in their manifesto to a promise to restore cutbacks 'women's existing right to choose' shows how vital it is that the pro-choice lob. by alert, particularly within the labour movement Facing up to this task will involve rallying women behind the pro-choice slogans of the Na tional Abortion Campaign Uver ine pas period NAC hasn't really response to the anti-abortion lobby in Britain because there has been no major legislative attack there has been a certain complacency among about abortion rights.
The so called right-tolifers never give up They are always vigilant, always ready for an opening to their anti-women goals.
The National Abortion Campaign's national conference meets on 1 and 2 Don't be placent. Get your Labour NAC group to send delegates and make sure they are affiliated to this Callaril, • For details of the NAC national conference write to NAC at 374 Grays Inn Road, telephone 01-278 0153.
attitudes towards men in a frank and explicit manner Wow, they are getting touchy!
But will they start broadcasting warnings before most of the rub.
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assault on a woman's right The anti-abortionists of the Society for the Pro-