A woman's right to choose?

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NEXT Socialist Organiser delegate meeting: Saturday January 15, 1lam to 5.30pm, in Coventry. Local groups should make preparations now to elect and to mandate

The latest attempt to change abortion law

- the Robertson bill -has failed in the House of Lords. But serious backdoor attacks continue.

The fight for abortion right! it is almost impossible ti get a National Healtl Service abortion. Genera Practitioners use the 'con science clause' to refuse t refer women, and the Soci ety for the Protection of th Unborn Child is active, witl public meetings and demo against abortion and th '67 Act. Their campaig has received added impetu from the visits of the Pop and Mother Theresa.

The Labour Party often goes along with them. Newly elected Ms Helen McElhone, Labour MP for Glasgow Queen's Park, made abortion a main HAND-printed silk-screened T-shirts. Give them as Christmas presents for wearing next summer. • Socialist Organiser: paper masthead, with option of local group's name added at 20p per T-shirt extra. • Solidarnose logo, red on white. • Labour against the witchs is far from won yet plank of her election campaign, guaranteeing to oppose abortion, and work for the repeal of the '67 Act.

In Bradford the situation is not much better. " It illustrates the problem of the huge regional disparity in abortion availability on the National Health Service. Very few abortions are performed in the Bradford area on the NiS, due to lack of facilities and the anti-abortion stance of GPs and gynaecologists.

Attempts by pro-choice campaigners to win a day care abortion clinic in Bradford have failed, due to the lack of anyone within the medical profession being prepared to fight the Seven Dials Club, Shelton St, London WC2:

NOTTINGHAM • Socialist Organiser meets on Fridays, 7.30pm at the International Community Centre, 61B Mansfield Road. HULL Socialist Organiser supporters' meetings: every Wednesday. Details from SO sellers.

ISLINGTON Socialist Organiser meetings: alternate Sundays, 3pm at Thornhill Neighbourhood Projeet, Orkney House, Caledonian . Road. Details: phone Nik, 607 5268.

LABOUR Committee on Ireland: annual general meeting 1983 will be on March 26. Resolutions to be in by February 27. There will be an extended meeting of the LCI National Council on January 22. BAN Plastic Bullets: a labour movement delegate conference. Saturday Febdelegates. for it.

In addition to the problems of lack of facilities and anti-abortionists, a woman's right to choose an abortion and fertility control is being denied through abuse of abortion and contraception. Not only in under-developed countries, but in Britain too, some women are being denied the right to be pregnant and bear children by enforced fertility control. Cases of sterilisation or the insertion of an InterUterine Device without the woman's consent, after an abortion, are not rare, especially among working-class black women. In-. jection of Depo Provera, the 3-month contraceptive ruary 26, from llam at UMIST, Barnes Wallis Building, Sackville St, Manchester 1. Sponsors include Labour Committee on Ireland. To sponsor, send delegates (fee $3), or to order leaflets (£6 per 100), contact: Plastic Bullets Conference, Box 15, 164-6 Hanging Ditch, Manchester M3 4BN. LABOUR Against the Witch-hunt: public meeting with Reg Race MP. Sunday January 9, lam to 1pm, WEA, Cartwright House, Broad St, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.

SPARTACIST Truth Kit -a 68-page analysis by John Lister, published by the Workers' Socialist League. £l plus 25p postage from WSL, PO Box 135, London N1 0DD.

•The Campaign Against Racist Laws can be contacted c/e 56, Edithna St., London SW9. drug, also poses a threat to women, by its wide-ranging potential side effects, including sterility.

Disabled women are denied their right to choose' by frequently being discouraged from bearing children, and feeling pressurised into undergoing abortion against their wishes.

These abuses of abortion and contraception and their use as a means of population control among non-white, non-middle class women are an important denial of women's control over their bodies and their lives, and must be fought in Britain and internationally.

So there is a huge amount of work for pro•Anwar Mahomed, a South African political exile, is in Strangeways Prison, Manchester. If sent back to South Africa, he faces interrogation, torture, maybe death. The Home Office has refused him political asylum. Manchester Anti-Apartheid is organising regular pickets of Strangeways: contact AA, 300 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NS. •Parveen and Shavkat Khan, and their children Imran and ifran, are under threat of deportation. So are Manjit Kaur and her daughter Palbinder.

Contact: Khan and Kaur Defence Campaign, 59÷ Stockport Road, Manchester 12. [061-225 5111] • Afia Begum is fightin deportation in East Lo Contact: c/o elir. Susa Carlyle, 36, Bradmore House, Jamaica St., London El.

•The Joint Campaign Against Deportations can be contacted c Bradford Law Centre, Sedgfield Terrace, Bradford 8. choice campaigners, and the National Abortion Campaign in particular, to carry out. • NAC held a national planning meeting on Sunday 5th in London, which brought together a large number of activists, representing groups as far apart as Dundee and Brighton, Norfolk and Merseyside. It became clear at the meeting that local abortion campaign groups are doing a great deal of work to fight for better facilities and access to abortion, to publicise womem's abortion rights, and to take up the question of population control.

What we must not do, is to go on the offensive nationally. We must push forward on the issue of positive legislation, organising a forum to debate what legislation changes we would like to see, and the best tactical methods of gaining them. Local groups are limited in what they can do to tackle the question of lack of facilities and refusal by doctors to perform • an abortion. The problem must be dealt with nationally.

We must also do all the means of by-passing anti-abortion G.P.s, where possible. In addition, there are new methods of tertility control that many women don't yet. know about.

Most recent is 'postcoital contraception', which is available from GPs. It involves one dose of two Eugynon 50 tablets, followed by a second dose after 12 hours, both taken within 72 hours of intercourse, and accompanied by the insertion of an IUD within 5 days. This is reported to be effective, with very minor side effects.

Clearly it cannot be used as a regular method of contraception, and is only applicable to women who can take the pill. More research is necessary. But this development opens up the possibilities for safe, self-administered All this work of publicity and national campaigning costs money, and the National Abortion Campaign is short of funds. So encourage your trade union, women's group, Labour Party to affiliate and/or send a donation to:

The National Abortion N FOR LABOL DEMOCRACY £4.50 couples:

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