injections of a mixture of alum and water.
Contraception was feared by both moralists and sections of the labour movement. The latter associated birth Labour MPs who back Corrie publishing.
being an •OUL Annie 'obscene literature'. She had her child taken away from her for 'unfit' parent.
Besant's pamphlet But it was left themselves to win practical support governments and authorities. When, in 1923, the ABORTION The struggle in the Labour Movemen!
Minister of Health refused permission for maternity centres to give advice on birth control the ban was taken up at Labour Party's women's conference, which passed a resolution by 1,000 to eight in protest.
It was not until 1926 that the Labour Pary conference passed by a narrow majority a similar resolution and even that decision was reversed the following year. occurred despite an appeal from a woman delegate that, 'it is four times as dangerous for a woman to bear a child as it is to go down a mine.
In 1930 the Ministry of Health finally gave way and lifted the ban on maternity centres advising on birth although authorities had taken up this option as late as the 1960s By then the debate had began to women local switch to abortion, Parliament of 1929 had declared legal same flaw fixed the visatsty eithe same law fixed foetus at 28 weeks. The legal restriction on abortion coupled with an increasing demand meant that by 1939 up to 150,000 abortions were illegally.
These figures were produced by the Birkett committee which also pointed to the suffering caused by back-street proper abortions because of the limitations still imposed by the law.
Legal changes recommended by This this committee were shelved with the advent of war. Attempts for reform were defeated in 1953, 1961, 1965 and 1966.
Finally David Steel introduced the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill which became the 1967 Abortion Act. But Steel stressed the limits of the local changes saying, 'we want to stamp out back-street abortions but it is not the intention... to leave a wide door oper for abortion on demand.' which an Act of counter-attack restrictive viability of the James But women liberation being performed mobilisations Issue taken by the Campaign.
MP.
The The ruling class soon began the attempts at legislation through the White Bill (1975) and the William Benyon Bill (1977).
underestimated the fighting power of the women's movement that had emerged in the late 1960s. The mass women defeated these Bills and forced the trade unions to at last see that abortion was a class — that all women, not just the rich should have access to abortion and the right to control their lives.
*Many of the details in this article 'Abortion: The struggle in the Labour Movement' excellent pamphlet just published • Labour Abortion Rights Contributors include Mary Donnelly, Ann Kingsbury, Dị Berry Beaumont, and Jo Richardson pamphlet, price 40p, available from The Other Bookshop 328 Upper St, London N1. Add 10p i ordering by mail.