enlightened medical authorities, erally interpreting the 1967 Abortion Act, has much more to lose than most other regions if Corrie's Bill becomes certainly produce a grim harvest of unnecessary suffering lives, permanently impaired health, young women dead. Yet, most of the North-east's Members of Parliament (all males, incidentally) oblivious to these hazards. majority of them voted for the Corrie Bill. Medical The proposed Act specifically threatens working women. question it raises is not whether there will be abortions, but under what circumstances thev will be carried out Will be proper conditions, where the risks are less than those of having a baby, or will it be under primitive conditions, carried out by an individual with no medical training whatsoever?
lo le rich and privileged, the answer is quite simple: money speaks nursing trips abroad. It is the less well-off women who will be thrown into the clumsy hands backstreet abortionist.
Yearsago, my mother had an illegal abortion and almost died as a result. Even so, she never decision. Later, she told me it had been necessary to keep the InCE ASO will une extra linancial burden, she would have been unable to give her children a good start in life.
mother, have gambled with death for the sake of others is impossible to say. Estimates Chale 1967 Act, 100,000 women a year had illegal operations.
Of besides backstreet surgery, the sale of chemical was widespread. stances used varied from mixtures including copper, quinine, to even gin and gunpowder.
Newspapers carried adverts for Counter 'Lifé' Wandsworth, SW London.
and quick abortions.
and friends.
1 September, 2:30pm, Wandsworth A MOTION from the Tobacco Workers' Union to the | TUC next week calls on the trade union movement to campaign against 'any measures which seek to deny women their right to free contraceptive and abortion The TUC has already called a demonstration against the Corrie anti-abortion Bill. Here RAY CHALLINOR looks at what is at risk for women in the North-east, and a model resolution suggests how we can ensure Corrie WnICh wrecked lead base. One Newcastle doctor was saving that he inspected the gums of women who had aborted, a thin blue line round the gums was the tell-tale sign of the tne Newcastle woman who had aborted lead pills. For seven days afterwards she suffered severe headaches vomiting; a month later her hands and legs were paralysed; and she remained very ill for a further five months. medical classified as one of the fortunate ones.
Thankfully push up the death rate among women.
relials a CHEETON However, let there be no doubt, to the degree women are prevented from having recourse to existing medical procedures, the Act will inevitably family government reveal the full horror of Eu Callici tnere induced abortions each year in India like my height of the vietnamese less than that of an Indian woman But Corrie and his supporters do not seem to be unduly disturbed; they say they are concerned about the fate of the foetus. But is this really true?
Are they the caring, sionate people they pose as being?' This Saturday, 1 September, the anti-abortion outfit Life is marching in Its objective? To protest against the setting up of an abortion day-care unit, which could provide thousands of women with free, safe, Join the counter-demonstration — 2.30pm, South London Hospital for Women. Tube: Clapham South. Be there, and bring your banners urges action to discover why this is.
Needlessly
exist, the chance is 90 per cent. 3.8 compassolicitude for the unborn child but do so little to campaign against the real newspapers. The Evening Chronicle, the country for stillborn births and deaths among babies less than a week old. And a report published today Struggle The 56 page dossier compiled b the Comprehensive Community Pro body looking ento lop oing investigation of the mystery deaths.
Clearly, the prevalence of poverty, important factor, but a few days later Dr. Edmond Hay, a senior lecturer at Newcastle University in child health, June 1978, he declared that 'a baby born eight weeks premature has only a 50 per cent chance of surviving to be a another becomes permanently braindamaged every 10 days because of Despite WITH the TIC having called the 28 October demonstration against the Corrie Bill, there is now every opportunity to build mass Labour movement support for the demonstration.
With many trade union branches and trades councils soon returning from their August break now is the time to submit resolutions building and supporting 28 October. The following model resolution is suggested:
"This branch notes that the anti-ahortion Bill sponsored by John Corrie MIP is part of the systematic attack by the Tory government on women's democratic rights in that it further restricts the right of women to control their own bodies.
"This branch therefore resolves:
I. To support the 28 October demonstration in London called by the TI: C in opposition to the Corrie Bill:
To call on the national executive to support the demonstration and in coniunction with the demonstration and to press the TL'C to organise widespread publicity for the demonstration;
To call on the national executive to mandate its delegates to the Labour Party conference lo oppose the 'free vote' in Parliament on the Corrie Bill and to insist that Labour MPs vote in accordance with Labour Party policy, which is for free abortion on demand:
4. Insponsor the Campaign Against the C'orrie Bill. in order to build the biggest opposition to this proposed legislation, and to affiliate to the National Abortion Campaign, which is fighting for a woman's right to choose. with all the necessary tacilities this implies.' Both campaigns are located at: 374 Gray's Inn Road, London WC"1.
Yet, supporters of the Corrie Bill | in the North-east. On the whole, they stay strangely mute about thisissue. were Corrie, as a Tory MP, even supports wives public expenditure cuts in the Health Service that will worsen the situation.
abortionists has the faint echo of a by-gone age. Even the name of their League of National Life, the struggle against the dissemination of contraceptive advice in the 1920s birth control, visited Gateshead, she had abuse showered upon her. They accused her of being anti-Christian, immoral and undermining family life.
They said she foisted her dangerous local clergy, overturned the caravan official policy. equipment. A local Mrs Grundy tore grams. One shows the male organ in a controllers continued their campaign TUC, to organise transport to the received Working-class did want their health undermined by the annual pregnanc or the difficulty of making ends me by having extra mouths to feed.
• The Workers' Birth Control Group persuaded Ernest Thurtle to sponsor a Private Member's Bill. Then it begar to badger MPs who did not support the bill, bringing pressure to bear at grassroots level.
When the Corrie Bill came before Parliament, 68 Labour MPs voted for restoring business to the backstree abortionist, 84 voted against it, and 100 did not vote at all.
Reminded In the North-east, there are a predominance of Labour MPs. These need to be reminded not only of the dangers 10] working-class women inherent in the Corrie Bill, but also of Labour Party and Let us see that those who persist in supporting Corrie are subjected to a rumpus in the tradition of the Workers' Birth Control Group: Only this way can we insure this diabolical piece of legislation, knitting-needles and all, is kept off the statute book.
Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 3
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services on request.' hears the sound of our fury.
Gambled How many other women,