Nowhere in the world are women guaranteed the absolute right control their fertility, the absolute right to decide whether they want children and, if so, under what conditions.
Millions of women incur mutilation and death because their right to contraception & their right to legal abortion under safe conditions are denied by civil law & by the church. Women suffer physical injuries from clandestine abortions; they are sometimes imprisoned, and always humiliated, because they demand this right...
The laws 'liberalising' abortions that have been passed in such countries as the United States, Italy or Creat Britain impose ere limits on the right to including time limits & the denial of this right to underage and imm -igrant women, as well as the 'conscience clause' that "legitimises' doctors' refusal to perform ions.
Under these laws, women must often give proof that they have been raped, that they are prone to 'mental instability' or that they run 'grave risks' to their health in order to get an abortion. And in most cases the final decision rests with the medical profession.
Women do not confront these problems only as individuals. Throughout the world, women are struggling for the right to control their bodies under adequate conditions & to decide when and if they children.
The struggle for the right to safe legal abortion has been led by the women's liberation movement, But this struggle concerns all ments and individuals who are fighting for democratic rights & iustice.
Women's right to control their bodies, to contraception and abortion, and to refuse forced sterilis -ation, have become international questions that have called forth debates and confrontations around the world. The forces opposed to womens' rights to choose are powerful.
They include governments, church es, the medical profession, political parties and anti-abortion groups that force women to suffer and fie in the name of morality. of the struggle to defeat these forces will have an impact on all battles for elementary human rights.
WOMEN DEMAND: * The right to control our own bodies * The right to contraception * The right to abortion * The right to refuse forced sterilisation.
the Commons as James White did a few years ago.
Having sustained a major campaign to roll back the 1967 Act for a decade now, almost certain they will up the anti-abortion offensive in the coming sessions.
Activity Alan Fisher (Gen. Sec, of NUPE) was particularly forceful in pledging his support against this reactionary alliance. nor against abortion", he said. "Abortion, the right to choose, basic right of our women members which we must fight for...".
France, - and voting for action if restrict- While pledging support, however sevchoose, ive legislation is put on the books -many union leaders were quick to point out that this would depend on the rank-and-file who 'lagged' behind their leaders on this issue. abort- This hoary old chesnut, which has often been used in the past as less interest, leaders to gains of the it is womens' rights.
Labour Government "I am neither for is a the fight for their rights.
Drawing unionists into acti vity in Two years ago,