values human life.
HUMAN life begins at conception. Hence all abortion is destriction not of potential life, but That avoruodisis Deleve.
Women see the existence of the conceptus or Toetus as their own lives. So attacks on a woman's right to decide have been concentrated on the later stages of pregnancy when a foetus could be 'viable", and on late abortions.
The crudely orchestrated stories foetuses' Corrie'ș Bill, are one part of this approach; the propaganda leafets showing still birts and late other insidious aspect, is the loeluses.
The majority of abortions take place under (welve weeks. The foetus is then minute in size and no different in appearance from the foetus of an ape or pig. relating all abortions to creatures looking like babies helps to win them support.
The same manipulative technique is used in SPUC and slide accompanying tape of a foetal heart beat and the subjective language used to describe the foetus at its very earliest stages: '...by the eighth week you stroking of your chin and would have grabbed an instrument placed in your hand...' Pregnant Arguments about 'viability' are used by the anti-abortionists to deny women rights at all stages of pregnancy. It is simply a description of the stage when a foetus could survive, with the aid of sophisticated life support systems, independently of the woman.
Before this point, the foetal łungs are solid and it can not breath outside the womb. It is ImDos ole to development occurs because conception itself cannot be accurately dated. However, it will noi occur at progressively earlier stages as the anti-abortionists would have us believe.
What is changing, however, is the ability of the medical profession to resuscitate premature births, and to begin to create the conditons of the womb artificially. Conception can now take place succassfully in eventually be possible to create an artifical placenta. If women accept that our rights to A WOMANS RIGHT TO CHODSE.
BROAD CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED OVER forty people national meting on 17 July to form a broad-based committee to campaign against the Corrie Bill and build the fargest demonstration autumn;
Present were representatives from the Communist Party, Workers Party, International Marxist Group, Abortion Law Association, and the Abartion Campaign. There were also many local campaigns.
The committee will concentrate on jublicity and propaganda campaign from OmeR HOY. wals, labour imoyement bodies, and so The Campaign Against the Corrie il will use the offices of NAC at 374 rays Inn Road, London WCI. The next meeting is on Tuesday, 31 July, JOHN COKKIE, the MP who wants to send women to the backstreets for abortion, is at least a consistent reactionary.
He voted for capital punishment in the recent Commons' vote. So pro-abortion campaigners are now aware of how much Corrie Meanwhile a press campaign against late abortions has developed to further boost the Corrie Bill. ROSE KNIGHT of the abstract compared to the reality of rights of 'living which preceded the introduction of use ot But the emotive effect. of shows, woul have reponded to gentle determine exactly when this ats-lube. may Malet Street, 7.30pm.
TWENTY
attended a meeting NAC/Labour Campaign:
the Corrie Bill.
The meeting attended next General Never for the 30 July at 7.30pm Socialist FORD WORKERS ACT Reform National abortion for the Corrie Bill.
encouraged to abortion are conditional on the 'independent' life of the foetus, then the way that this would be translated into law would be if the upper time limit for abortion was the very lowest age al which a foetus could survive and develop outside the womb. ruture develonments birth technology could mean. that based ot InIs principle non-existent.
ROSE KNIGHT Abortions are performed very late in pregnancy when the possibility of the foetus being viablę are rare (0.2 per cent or a total o ID4 vÇ vçç [ ıdı [ They are done for women whose lives are at risk or who have severe medical conditions: Chid incest, rape or montrousiy delormec l'oetuses. There are one or two cases when traumatic social circumstances are taken into consideration. Women do not seek out or late late abortions. Late temselves be a good thing.
They are often the result of factors over which women temselves have only limited control at present: the lack of NHS facilities for early safe abortion uniformly available across the country. This means delays.
The hureaucracy and Abortion Act itself, plus the fact that doctors, at the University of London Union, London WC1 at TRADES UNIONISTS AGAINST trades unionists called by the A hortion Rights trade union liaison committee to discuss how to organise within the labour movement against It was felt that while the TUC's sing. call for a national demonstration was very positive, the question was how trades unionists were to be mobilised.
organised delegation to visit the TUC before the Council meeting NAC's proposal that the demonstration should be held on 27 Next meting at NAC offices on THE 1/1107 branch of the Transport and General Workers' Union which organises Ford Dagenham's (all male) engine plant and the paint, trim and assembly plant is to write officially to all T&G sponsored MPs and local MPs urging them to vote against the TO will be write in. The motion was carried with none against after being proposed and seconded on the basis that it is a woman's right to Evo that as anti-abortionists. abortion would be abortions can never in tape in ine not women, make the decision so that women are rejected, means more delays. The lack of reliable tests early in pregnancy to detect gross foetal abnormalities. The absence of publicity about tertility control in public places. arc also other factors, in themselves rooted in a repressive and sexist society: young women have late abortions because of the fea admitting their pregnancy in a society which does not accept the sexuality of adolescents.
Woren do not need a viability limit, or any other restrictions on their right to choose. need total control over our bodies so that we make difficult decisions late in pregnancy, and far as possiole we can reouce Ine incidence of late abortions.
Being defensive about 'viability' abortions is to accept the stunted logic of the NAC rejects this. from the basis that it is women's rights that matter. We are capable of making informed decisions about all stages of our pregnancies, that state intervention in decisions about own bodily processes is totally There judgement'.
abortion, SO believes that the legal and late OCA ex sence We start should cashed in at birth.
unacceptable, and that human rights are not based on biological facts about conception or 'viability'.
If "rights' are given to the unborn foetus, then who decides whose rights take precedence? The present Abortion Act, whilst not giving the foetus legal status; allows the doctor to make th decision about abortion. Corrie's Bill begins the process of tighening up the area within which a doctor can exercise his or her "clinical It does this by changing the grounds for that, implication, foetal development at its earliest stages is , seen as aud neds om tre mporn coban et. NAC and needs of the woman concerned stalus or ine foetus should match biological facts, since it has no Whilst the foetus is undeniably a potentia human being in its normal state, it is dependent on, and part of, the mother's body. Its rights therefore be potential rights, to be
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National Abortion Campaign disentangles the myths from the realities and answers the anti-abortionists.