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Socialist Organiser1982 1982-02-25Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 9 →
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nised! l act as a real can organise leadership. t support and liance groups • towns. upporters are linimum of 6 at least £1.50 area why not once to us at week for nine months to gain compliance - difficult when you're living on $22 a week.
Also, there are disturbing signs that the leadership is attempting in an underhand way to prevent the recruitment of the unemployed:
But more significantly, the unemployed are not all white, male, 40-year old manual workers. One-half of the unemployed on Merseyside are under 25. One-third are women and not a few are black. Because of this, a union branch attempting to fight alongside the unemployed faced very different problems from an industriallybased branch.
ignored However, trade union and labour movement education courses are being organised and out of pocket expenses being met.
We are faced with showing people who, because of their race or sex or age,
Scan page 10
cialist Organiser, Thursday February 25, 1982 Page 10 SECURITY Women from BL's Bathgate plant - the scene until last Friday of a month-long strike and short occupation in defence of jobs - at the head of a protest against 407 CB: ? ynaecologist Peter Huningford has been cleared of legations that he had perinmed illegal abortions. : On Monday 22 February, Attorney General, Schael Havers gave ritten answer to Labour • Peter Archer saying the PP had decided that there is no case to answer.
Now we need to step up pressure to force the *HSS to change their forms to the old format here there was provision * a woman to get rid of an awanted pregnancy on acial grounds.
A woman who wants an bortion is not 'sick'-as *ter Huntingford says in his interview (which was onducted three days before he case was dropped).
ME not been charged rer. though I've been autioned and Scotland Tard have taken a statebent.
I understand that if iction is to be taken it'll rappen next week. Of bourse they're not obliged Io tell me anything, and it bould drag on for months.
On 5 October last year, ine of my abortion notificsion forms was returned. I ias asked to re-do the form is the way I'd filled it in as not acceptable to the DHSS.
Against Clause 2, the brn. has 'State main medical reason' . I had •ritten 'none'. I returned Ibe form to the Chief Medical Officer of Health, with a letter saying I'd written none in these cases for the last 12 years and I was not going to certify disease where there was none.
I wrote none and I none.
On 5 December about •OLL five or six other forms were returned with a note. Then I got a letter from the Chief Medical Officer saying he felt he had no alternative but to inform the Director of Public Prosecutions. He thought there was a case for prosecuting me on the grounds of performing illegal abortions.
But all through I have maintained that 1 meant what I wrote: that there tion Act to be introduced in a surreptitious and underhand way.
It's designed to intimidate the middle of the road doctors who don't want to go out of their way to give women abortions.
I've been accused of arguing about semantics. It's not semantics. I believe the Abortion Act does make provision for abortion on demand in good faith up to 14 weeks.
The new form denies that provision and I won't have it.
Political pressures will influence the Director of Public Prosecutions and the National Abortion Campaign has organised events to protest about the new forms.
The problem is that once I'm charged (if I am), the case becomes sub judice, and there can be no public comment about it. The press-the national dailies not Socialist Organiserwon't touch it, or even report campaigns and lobbies organised by NAC.
This also means that there will be nothing said about it in Parliament, which is ironic as I believe the government are trying to change the law without having anything to do with the Parliamentary process.
We should have a campaign to get the forms withdrawn. Maybe that's an issue the TUC and Labour Party could get their teeth into. TAKE ROS in BUT WORL WITH
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