La Socialist Workers Party THE National Abortion Campaign conference in Leeds last weekend threw out a resolution that NAC should become a woman-only campaign.
open to all who agree with its aims.
Medical The 250-strong conference also voted overwhelmingly LauncE woman's right to choose whether or not to terpractice Local groups will be urging the Labour Party to adopt such a policy in its manifesto, and campaigning to ensure that abortion facilities are mandatory on the National Health Service.
The conference decided to hold a major rally in the autumn aimed at broadening the debate on why the 1967 Act is inadequate and why the choice to have an abortion should be made by the woman herself and not the medical profession or the government.
The successful Campaign had involved more women in the pro-choice movement than at any other time in the five years since NAC was set up. The TUC had been By Stephen Potter MUCH hard thinking is going on in the labour movement as the lessons of the TUC Day of Action are absorbed. Socialist was no exception.
In a major article last week Tony Cliff anticipated events on 14 May with a call for a united front approach against the Tories which also con. tradicted some positions adopted at the last conference of the Socialist Workers' Party:
The main point of Cliff's article was to highlight that 'Above all the 14 May reveals the crisis of leadership'. He gave three reasons for this crisis of leadership which included: the impact of years of collaboration; the depth of the crisis and the strength of capitalist ideas among the working class and the decline of the Communist Party.
His main conclusions were that of building a leadership 'in struggle' especially around defiance of the Prior laws; replacing the Communist Party with a revolutionary socialist organisation rooted in the class; and building a working class united front against the Tories in a way analagous the Anti-Nazi League, uniting with the Labour Party and the Communist Party.
pressured the restrictive Bill.
on that support.
NAC remains tie labour movemen. tion, Called u for march, - both in law and in choice -central.
to decide' Against Corrie paign.
Worker WorkIng into calling 60,000-strong demonstration in October last year to protest at Next spring NAC will be holding a labour movement conference to build Discussion at the conference reflected both the potential and the problems involved in an alliance between the women's movement and The TUC demonstrawhere some women had rushed to the front because Len Murray was leading the was fresh in people's minds.
At the centre of the debate was what was nicall by a woman's rigat lo choosc. women were concerned that in gaining support from the labour movement, the campaign had been stressing the economic poor women need free abortions. because rich women can always have them and not stressing that the issue of control was The slogan 'Our bodies, our lives, our right was adopted to make it clear that women's sexual freedom was at stake.
Women from Leeds and Brighton NAC thought that because the fundamental issue was whether women should have control over them own bodies, only women should run the camTimeto change course?
Cliff dismisses developments in the Labour Party and refuses to confront the disunity of the far left.
against the Tories is a be fight against the them. suggest necessary to acuon agamnst inc unemployment, technology.
Cliff discuss the influence in the trade unions.
But opposition to this argument came from many different viewpoints at the conference Women in the Labour Party pointed out how difficult it would be to from the party if NAC was womenmoney only. Women in smaller local groups felt that if they excluded men they would feel even more Isolated.
Many women who supported the women's liberation movement pointed out that NAC had been successful because it was a broad-based campaign; that anyone who supports women controlling their fertility can join, and that if men were forced out some women might be put off.
Women Trom the Group pointed out that NAC was led women and that men were few in number at the conference. The existing constitution had never barred women from having women's-only meetings or having a women's-only assembly, as was held on & rebruarv when 5.000 womer protested outside the Houses of Parliament during the third reading of the Corrie Bill.
After a great deal of debate on the issue, the conference decided to trom some of the non-aligned women on the campaign steering committee, suggesting that although NAC should remain a mixed camist WO issues to be concentrated on or the policies that a united front should be "left' formed around. After five years of a Labour government, and one year of the Tories, militants in the labour movement are keen to know where a make gains.
Tories will take political answers are LIt problems inflation, the But Cliff is right in pointing out the decline in the Communist Party's Labour Then couraged to lead the campaign. affiliation and pointed out, Debate and autonomous way forward for the campaign.
Sune attempts to and gaining new licences, International Marxist work cut out over the next year.
on demand -support a resolution front CON that car sistent rights. fective failure to act independently of the bureaucrats has made some trade unionists see membership of the Communist Party as pointless and opened the terrain for the far left to Wing one.
But it is not only the far left who is viewing the decline of the CP in inshoes. The left in the Labour Party, particularly those forces around the Co-ordinating Committee, have also grasped what is happening paign it should recognise that women were oppressed as a group and that they should be enOn particular occasions, the resolution this would mean that women might meet separately. The resolution won the support of a large majority of the conference reflection after a year of successful campaigning was inevitable. Some women expressed disappointment that there was not a little more concrete discussion on the stop abortion charity clinics advertising on the London underground and the possible closure of family planning clinics mean thạt, even without a parliamentary attack on the right to choose, NAC groups will have their Having clarified some of the objectives of the campaign, NAC will hopefully continue to be an open, broad-based campaign that can win more and more people, particularly women, to actively participate in the fight for free abortion - a women's right to choose The next NAC National Planning Meeting is on 14-15 June in London. It will discuss the details of the Positive Legislation Campaign Ring NAC on 01-278 0153 for details and they have made proposals that challenge the division of labour that has existed between the LP in Parliament and the CP in industry since the *20 They are urging the Labour Party to begin organising inside the unions rather than leaving it up to the CP's Broad Left formations.