Feminism & Socialism

International Women’s Day 2012

2011-12-28T13:14:00.000+10:00

No woman is free until all women are free

safety, equality, public services

Rally and march

Saturday March 10, 1pm

Queens Park (George St, behind Casino)

March to Kurilpa Hall for festival

(174 Boundary St, West End)

* End the NT Intervention

* Equal pay now: increase funding to public services
* Repeal all anti-abortion laws
* No "income management"
* Refugee rights now: end mandatory detention

For over a century, International Women's Day has been marked by protests organised to highlight and build the campaigns for women's rights. These days, the history of IWD is too often hidden behind the dazzle of corporate funded luncheons and government sponsored talk-fests. But that was never what the women's liberation movement was about. The movement that founded International Women's Day was one that set out to liberate all women. As long as sexism, misogyny, racism, queerphobia, transphobia, ableism and exploitation continue to oppress women here and around the world, then we need a women's liberation movement. Because no women is free until all women are free.

This year's IWD rally will highlight some of the many issues and campaigns that are being waged by women for justice and equality. It will demand an end to the NT Intervention; equal pay and an increase in funding to public services; a repeal of all anti-abortion laws; an end to "income management" and an end to mandatory detention. There will also be speakers to address issues faced by women prisoners; the campaign for the rights of transgender and transsexual women and the campaigns against sexual assault.

The only way to keep the real history and traditions of International Women's Day and the struggle for women's liberation alive is through taking our message to the streets in protest. Through collective protest action, we can inform and empower ourselves, create awareness and an understanding that we don't just have to accept the injustices that society creates - there is something that we can do about it. As a new tide of protest is sweeping the world, people are awakening to the strength of their collective power. Now more than ever we need a movement that can raise the demands of women and join with this rising wave of protest to build the struggle for true women's liberation. Join us!

Fighting for an inclusive feminist movement

2011-06-23T00:25:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam, Direct Action

Around 350 people attended the Feminist Futures Conference, held in Melbourne on May 28-29. Before the conference, there was heated debate on the conference Facebook page about the panellists for the conference, much of the focus being on the inclusion of Melbourne academic Sheila Jeffreys in the program. The opposition to Jeffreys was based upon her extreme transphobic campaigns, as well as her leading role in campaigning against sex workers. A number of other speakers were also opposed on this basis.

Jeffreys was originally on the program, but after a great deal of opposition, the collective agreed to include on the feature panels a number of other speakers, including a representative of the Australian Sex Worker Association, Scarlet Alliance and Still Fierce, Melbourne (a collective that campaigns for the rights of sex and gender diverse people). Upon this announcement, Jeffreys withdrew from the conference, because she was unwilling to speak alongside a trans man. A counter-conference of around 50 people was organised, at which Jeffreys spoke, dedicating her entire speech to vilifying transgender and transsexual people.

Jeffreys and her “radical feminist” supporters cry foul about their increasing isolation within the feminist movement. But the reality is that they are not socially isolated; in fact it is their anti-trans* and anti-sex worker campaigns that get them the most coverage. It is very difficult to argue that Jeffreys - a tenured professor and published author - is hard done by. It’s not hard to get a hearing when you are backing the exclusion of the already oppressed and marginalised.

Oppression
What Jeffreys and her supporters don’t talk about is the reality of transgender and transsexual oppression. A report by the WA Gender Project details part of this reality from a 2006 study:

* 26.5% of transgender men and 33.3% of transgender women fear discrimination to the point that they modify their daily lives.

* 73.5% of transgender men and 69.7% of transgender women report experiencing personal insults or verbal abuse.

* 29.4% of transgender men and 46.9% of transgender women report experiencing threats of violence or intimidation.

* 11.8% of transgender men and 18.2% of transgender women report experiencing a physical attack or other forms of violence.

In other studies, these figures are even higher. This is the reality that Jeffreys and her supporters ignore. Just as reactionaries have argued for decades that sexuality is a “choice”, the “rad-fems” posit that being trans* is a choice. Further, they argue that trans* women are “invading women’s spaces” or that trans* men are selling out or trying to “escape” women’s oppression. It’s all 100% vile and thoroughly reactionary.

They enforce the oppression of trans* people and try to prevent the feminist movement becoming an ally in the fight for liberation. This exclusion has a long history. Susan Stryker’s book Transgender history gives a detailed account of this exclusion in the US. As recently as 1999, there were attempts to exclude trans* women from the Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) conference in Australia.

The impact of such exclusion can have extreme consequences for already oppressed and marginalised people. It has meant that even when the transphobia and transmisogyny are not openly expressed, the movement for many years has been largely silent about the oppression of trans* people. In large parts of the movement, there is an extremely low consciousness about trans* oppression or awareness of the history of the trans* liberation movement. This is also the case within the movement for LGBTI rights – where the TI is very often a very misunderstood add-on.

I would argue that the same is the case within the socialist movement in Australia, where until recently the defence of the rights of transgender and transsexual people has been primarily limited to occasional support for the inclusion of trans* women in the feminist movement.

This low level of consciousness explains the significant “middle ground” in relation to the debate over the inclusion of the likes of Sheila Jeffreys within the movement. On either side, there is simply no room for compromise: trying to convince Sheila Jeffreys about trans* rights is about as fruitful as trying to convince Tony Abbott about abortion rights. On the other side of the debate, there is no room for compromise in the opposition to this bigotry. But there is still a middle ground, represented by the liberal sentiments expressed by many people before the Melbourne conference that we should “have the debate”.

It is instructive to see the different response to another speaker who was originally on the platform of the conference, Melinda Tankard Reist. Tankard Reist is a conservative Christian anti-abortion campaigner, one of the leading figures in the new anti-abortion tactic of taking on a “pro-woman” or “feminist” guise in their campaigning. When her record was pointed out to the conference collective, they quickly withdrew the invitation.

While there is widespread understanding of the importance of a woman’s right to abortion, the different response to Sheila Jeffreys and other speakers with a consistent record of campaigning against trans* people and sex workers came down to the simple fact of a low level of awareness, education and consciousness about the rights of trans* people and sex workers. That is what explains the middle ground, and it is also why the growth of trans* liberation campaigns and the increasing organisation of sex workers have sped up the isolation of the likes of Jeffreys.

Tactics for the movement
But in trying to win that “middle ground”, tactics must also be instructed by an understanding of the history of exclusion. The rights of trans* people and sex workers have not only been overlooked by the feminist movement, but have been actively opposed by a significant section of it. Voices from within these communities have been excluded or silenced within the movement. Even where there is formal inclusion, if there are speakers at a conference who condemn you and your very existence from the platform, you are not going to feel welcome.

So when people argue that the likes of Jeffreys should be included in order to “have the debate”, they are not only legitimising her bigotry but are also enforcing the exclusion of those who are the target of that bigotry. There are not many people who want to sit through a debate about whether they have a right to exist and be themselves. The “inclusion” argument actually hands victory to the voices that already have power in society and further marginalises people already marginalised. This also means that the debate is not going to be very real, because it is heavily weighted against the oppressed.

This goes against one of the most important tenets that we should be advocating and fighting for within the feminist movement: that it should be about empowering the oppressed and building unity.

The opposition to the likes of Sheila Jeffreys and her supporters within the movement is growing. At the conference there was a strong contingent of trans* people, sex workers and their allies organised through the “Feminism is for Everybody” (FIFE) collective - complete with high-vis vests with F.I.F.E. emblazoned on the back. These are very important steps on a far too long road toward ending the exclusion of trans* people and sex workers. The basic premise “FIFE” strengthens the feminist movement immeasurably. It breaks down the divisions within the movement and it also destroys the bullshit idea that men are the enemy.

Enter SlutWalk
In this context, the SlutWalk movement has arrived at a very important time. The SlutWalk movement is explicitly pro-sex, pro-sex worker, pro-queer and pro-trans*, and the platforms of the protests have reflected this inclusiveness.

The protests that have been held around the country have put the issues of sexual assault and victim blaming on the agenda and mobilised the largest feminist demonstrations for over 10 years. There were 2500 people at the Melbourne protest (May 28), 400 in Brisbane (May 28) and 1000 in Sydney in the rain (June 13).

Yet, the SlutWalk movement has faced opposition among the radical feminists. This has developed on the same political basis as the bigotry toward trans* people and sex workers. The debate specifics may be different, but the line-up is the same.

On one hand you have the sex-negative essentialists, and on the other hand you have the sex-positive camp, which operates on the premise of “Feminism is for everyone” - including those who identify as sluts. The opposition from radical feminists, such as Gail Dines, is not about the use of the word, but about the concept that it defines - of women being out and proud about their expression of sexuality.

It’s important to understand that these are the real lines of debate, because some people have been confused by the arguments in relation to the use of the word “slut”. One socialist writer in Green Left Weekly even argued that the use of the word meant it was a “moral dilemma” for her to attend the demonstration.

But the real lines are not about a word. There is no legitimate debate as to whether the meaning of words can change their social meaning (even if the dictionaries are often slow to catch up).

Slut has been used in many communities for over 10 years as a term to describe, and take pride in, the expression of a particular form of sexuality (however defined: e.g. someone who has consensual sex with many people or someone who wears a particular form of dress).

There are many people who are out and proud sluts, so to declare, as one socialist group did at the Melbourne SlutWalk, that “no-one is a slut” is just ignorant and exclusionary (and it is especially bizarre to carry a banner that says “no-one is a slut” ahead of a march in which there are literally hundreds of women proudly emblazoned with the word). Such an approach puts them on the wrong side of the debate.

Deepening divide
What is most refreshing and inspiring about the SlutWalk movement is that people are in motion for women’s rights. When people are in motion, much of the bullshit and bigotry is swept aside. The debates will still need to be had, but with thousands of people taking to the streets, those who are in the sex-negative camp are being left out in the cold, and that is a very good thing. The protests have been inclusive, and the impulse to action is definitely there. Feminism is being put back on the agenda in the only way that counts: out on the streets in collective action.

Meanwhile, the greater the isolation of the anti-sex worker, anti-trans wing of the “radical feminist movement”, the more they expose the reactionary nature of their political project. While most people were clear about the exclusion of Melinda Tankard Reist from the Melbourne conference, some “radical feminists” continued to defend her even after she was no longer on the platform. Sections of this movement have been collaborating with these anti-woman reactionaries for some time. The “radical feminist” publishing group in Melbourne, Spinifex Press, allied with Tankard-Reist in Victoria in 2008 during the parliamentary debate on abortion laws, campaigning for compulsory counselling before women could access abortion.

In September leading activists in the “radical feminist” group in Perth, ROAR, have organised a conference titled “SCUM Radical Feminist Conference” to “celebrate and re-member the life and work of Valerie Solanas and other radical feminists”. SCUM was a piece by Valerie Solanas written in 1967; it stands for “Society for Cutting Up Men”. To herald this as some sort of manifesto for the movement is utterly reactionary and runs completely counter to the interests and needs of the feminist movement as a whole. Not only does it add to the misunderstanding of what feminism is about, but allowing this sort of rubbish to go unchallenged taints the whole movement with the bigotry they express. That’s why feminists should unequivocally oppose this sort of rubbish being organised in our name.

It would seem that the more inclusive the feminist movement becomes, the more reactionary this section of the “radical feminist” project becomes. Socialists have to take sides in this fight. There will be time enough for other debates and discussions within an inclusive feminist movement, but right now we have to side absolutely unequivocally with those who are fighting for an inclusive movement, a movement that speaks out for the rights of trans* people and sex workers.

We can also learn a lot from the courage of people who are willing to put themselves on the line within the feminist movement to fight for their right to be there, people who have already made a crucial contribution to making the movement what it should be: a social force for the liberation of all.

[This article is based on a workshop at the Marxist Education Conference in Brisbane organised by the Revolutionary Socialist Party on June 11-13. Kathy Newnam is a long-time activist in the women’s liberation movement.]

2011-06-20T21:12:00.003+10:00

Sluts and allies unite!

2011-05-15T21:15:00.000+10:00

by Kathy Newnam

The SlutWalk movement is very effectively challenging the culture of victim blaming that attempts to justify and excuse sexual assault. The SlutWalk movement is bringing feminist ideas and action back onto the agenda in a way that hasn't happened for decades. This movement was sparked by a Toronto cop who told a group of uni students that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised”. The cop has since apologised, but everyone knows that such a comment is just the tip of the iceberg and in fact it accurately reflects a mentality that permeates society and also the reality of the treatment of victims of sexual assault by the state. Every single day women who are assaulted are doubted and blamed by the cops and the courts while perpetrators walk free.

One in four women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Women have had enough of being blamed, shamed and harassed into silence about their abuse. Women have had enough of being shamed and blamed for what they wear, for being assertive and for expressing their sexuality. It is this reality that explains why the SlutWalks have struck a chord and are rapidly spreading across the world - sometimes it takes just a small spark to set off a wildfire.

Almost all women have experienced "slut-shaming" - either for their sexual expression or because they dared to speak out or rock the boat in some way. Slut-shaming is a weapon against all women. One of my most common experiences of slut-shaming is when I have been speaking out politically - whether it be leading a protest or campaigning on the street - many, many times opponents have sexualised my activity in an attempt to shame and silence me. It is all about power - slut-shaming is a weapon in the ongoing war against women which is fought to keep women silent about their oppressions; to keep women "in their place" - in the roles that capitalist society demands.

So when people ask "do I have to dress as a slut" to go on the slutwalk, I think the answer is "yes" and "no" - because the enemy will try to use the weapon of slut-shaming no-matter what women wear. I'll sure be dressed as a slut - just as I am every day, complete with socialist newspapers to sell - because that's what I've been doing most times when people have tried to "slut-shame" me!

Appropriating language

The reality is that the oppressed have always had to fight for language that they can use to define themselves - it is a crucial part of developing a sense of collective strength and pride. The queer movement has a long history of appropriating words used by the oppressor - the word queer itself being a good example (the appropriation of which was also challenged from some quarters). While slut has various different meanings and obviously different uses - if we take one meaning - that it describes a woman who enjoys consensual sex and perhaps lots of it - there is no word in the English language that I can think of that a woman can identify as that doesn't have negative connotations. The words carry negative connotations because society stigmatises women's sexuality - that is the problem, not the words themselves.

The fact is that there are many women who are comfortable with the word slut and women who take pride in being a slut. So while not everyone will use the word in relation to themselves, to say "no-one is a slut" as I have heard many people argue is really just plain dodgy, divisive and exclusionary.

Some people have a problem with a word such as slut when it has been used against them in a derogatory way - sometimes associated with violence. That is the case with all words that the oppressed use to describe themselves. In my experience, the word woman has been used in just such a way - but we can't give up all the words and language that the enemy uses to demean us or we are left with nothing to define ourselves and develop a common identity.

While I understand that some people will have negative associations with the word slut, I don't think that alone explains all the opposition to the appropriation of the word.I think that people who have a problem with appropriating the word slut need to check themselves. Is it the word or is the concept it describes that you have a problem with?

Collective action

Someone interviewed in one of the SlutWalks in the US said "when someone calls me a slut I turn around and say 'yeah, what of it, you got a problem with that, because I don't'". As part of the SlutWalks we are no longer saying it alone - we are in our tens of thousands saying "yeah, what of it, you got a problem with that, because we don't". It's mass collective action at its finest and its most challenging.

Through this collective action we can claim our space and gain strength and pride in ourselves through the strength and pride of others. I think it takes a lot of strength to proudly declare yourself a slut and not only take that word away from the enemy, but to refuse to wear the stigma that society puts on women for being themselves. So when I see these awesome marches around the world where thousands of people are declaring pride in being sluts then I feel inspired by that strength. And I'll be extremely proud to be part of a movement that takes a stand against slut-shaming of all kinds, including the extremely shameful and ongoing history of slut-shaming within the feminist movement.

This powerful collective action needs to continue and build on the awesome momentum the SlutWalks have created. The positive media attention will die down and as the movement gains success, the establishment will become a lot more hostile. Because they know that it is their system that breeds the culture of misogyny that underlies the brutal reality of sexual assault. If the movement is to succeed it must strike at the heart of the problem and that means taking aim at the system that breeds sexism and misogyny.

That's why we need a movement that declares from the start that it will keep fighting until it wins, no matter what barriers it faces. We need a movement that will not sell-out and will not compromise like so many of the leaders of our movements have done before.

We need a movement with a vision of a new society where women will no longer feel any shame or guilt for being who they are. Because that is what this is about. This movement is not just fighting to take the power away from a word - it is fighting to take away the shame, the guilt and the threat that women face for being themselves. That's exactly what the women's liberation movement has always been about - but this time the movement has to finish the job - this time we need to keep fighting until we win.

Sluts and allies unite! For a feminist revolution!

Why the Cairns abortion case was won

2010-12-20T09:47:00.002+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

Queensland’s anti-abortion laws were dealt a sharp blow on October 14 when a Cairns couple were acquitted on charges brought under those laws. For almost two years, the political and legal establishment had tried to have the couple condemned, yet it took the 12 working people on the jury less than an hour to conclude they had no case to answer.

Not only does this victory set a legal precedent, but perhaps just as importantly it sends a clear social message: abortion is OK. A young couple decided they wanted an abortion because they were not ready to have a child - a decision made by thousands of women every year. The verdict affirmed the widespread opinion in society that abortion is simply a fact of life.

There was a strong presence of abortion rights activists during the trial. Contingents had travelled from Brisbane, Sydney and New Zealand to join in the local demonstration against the injustice of people facing trial for abortion.

Throughout the two days of the trial, the private decisions of the couple were dragged through the court in front of lawyers and other complete strangers, paraded in front of the world in the media. Every move or gesture the couple made while they sat in the courtroom was reported in the national media.

The prosecution argued that the abortion was unsafe because the woman had not had medical supervision. This paternalistic argument was raised over and again - despite the prosecution’s own expert witness testifying just how safe and effective the abortion drugs are. He noted that both Mifepristone (RU486) and Misoprostol are listed as essential medicines by the World Health Organisation. The number of serious complications caused by the drugs is the same as in a spontaneous miscarriage - about 1 in 500.

The prosecution argued that abortion is unlawful unless there is authorisation, justification or excuse. In summing up, the prosecution derisively dismissed the couple’s decision to have an abortion as a “lifestyle choice”. Abortion was being put on trial.

Important concession

But the prosecution also made an important legal concession - a product of the strong support for the couple and opposition to the case. The prosecution conceded that if it could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt that the abortion drugs were “noxious”, then the couple would have to be acquitted. This was further clarified by the judge, following the defence arguments, that it would have to be “noxious” to the woman, not to the foetus, because according to the law it didn’t matter if she was pregnant at the time.

This was a very significant concession, because the prosecution’s expert witness had testified that the abortion drugs are not noxious. It marked a shift in the state’s case; in the committal hearing in September 2009, the prosecution had argued that it didn’t matter whether the drug was noxious because, according to the law, it is a crime to use “any means whatsoever” to procure a miscarriage.

Why this inconsistency? Why would the state make a different case in the committal hearing, drag the couple through another year of trauma, and then make such a significant concession in the trial?

The single most important thing to realise is that the political and legal establishment always tries to find a way out that doesn’t acknowledge the role of public political pressure. When there is enough pressure on the system, enough protest, enough anger that they are forced to act, then they will do whatever they can to ensure that the people do not know that the movement had an impact. That is what has happened in this case.

Pressures on system

The political-legal establishment would have known only too well that if there was a guilty verdict there would be intense anger and protest. There are a lot of interconnected aspects to the pressure that was on the system.

The first is that the couple stayed strong. They did not try to change their case. They did not say, for example, that she needed the abortion because of mental health. They stuck with the truth without shame. And they were totally dignified.

Secondly, the campaign of public protest was a grassroots campaign that challenged the lies and informed people about the case. There were five protest rallies in Brisbane from June 2009 and a nationwide campaign that culminated in a national day of action before the trial that was the strongest show of public support for abortion rights in over a decade.

The third aspect was the strong connection between the grassroots campaign and the view in society about abortion. While the protest rallies were relatively small, they reflected a broad cross-section of opposition. That is what had the establishment worried. They knew that breadth could easily translate into larger and larger numbers because there is widespread support for abortion, and there was strong and widespread anger about the case.

It is these factors that explain the legal concession the state made in the trial and the defeat of the attack.

Media bigotry

While the outcome of the case confirms the widespread view in society that abortion is OK, the media try to shift the attention, to create controversy. The one anti-abortion bigot who was in Cairns got equal time in most media reports with the dozens and dozens of abortion rights supporters. The media fan the flames of bigotry. But it is not a legitimate debate. The fact is that abortion on demand is socially accepted; it is a fact of life. The attempts to restrict access to abortion are about social control of women in a highly sexist society. That is why the anti-abortion arguments are given a disproportionate voice in the political establishment, and it is also why our fight will have to continue.

Abortion is not unpopular. It is made into a taboo subject only because the sexist, misogynist political establishment knows too well that when women talk about abortion, it breaks down the mystification and the stigma. Public campaigning breaks that down too.

We have to turn the tables. It is the anti-abortionists who should be stigmatised. They are the people who would condemn women to dangerous backyard abortion. They are the people who support the bans on abortion throughout the world that condemn 78,000 women to death every year.

No saviours

The support for abortion rights must be mobilised and turned into sustained political pressure for repeal of the anti-abortion laws. There will be no saviours in this fight.

The campaign has to resist the pressure to take the path of least resistance, and there will always be those who try to steer us on this path. At the press conference on the first morning of the Cairns trial, this is what ALP ex-MP Bonny Barry tried to do: to focus attention on waiting for an ALP MP to put a private member’s bill. She “apologised” for not putting a bill when she was in parliament. She claimed the media stage by virtue of what she had not done. She later defended current MPs’ inaction to repeal the laws: she said it is very difficult for them. Difficult like facing seven years in jail for abortion? Difficult like having your house fire-bombed, as the Cairns couple did after the Cairns Post published their address in April 2009?! It might well be “difficult” to go against the ALP machine - but only if you put your career and your privileges before women.

In any case, the campaign should not put its hopes in a private member’s bill. That takes pressure off the government and allows it to hide behind the “conscience vote”. Refusing women the right to control their own bodies is not about “conscience”; it’s about bigotry, misogyny and social control.

The grassroots movement must continue to voice the interests of women. It can’t be left up to lobby groups that are always too willing to concede ground. It’s great, for example, that GetUp! has come on board the campaign, but it is also very worrying that its petition called for abortion to be regulated in the health code. This is how the “reform” process in other states has ended up bringing in new restrictions on abortion: for example, upper time limits and parental consent laws. Abortion should not be treated any differently than any other health issue. Appendicectomy is not specifically regulated in the health code, heart surgery is not specifically regulated in the health code and abortion should not be specifically regulated in the health code.

No one has the right to compromise on behalf of women. All restrictions on abortion access disproportionately impact on women who are already at a disadvantage. It is always the middle class reformists who are willing to compromise on behalf of working women. The grassroots movement must continue to voice the demand for free, safe, accessible abortion on demand.

The politically independent campaign that voices women’s demands must be strengthened - a campaign that has no interests to protect other than those of women and our right to abortion. We have to continue to build confidence in our own power, not relying on those in the establishment to act for us. We have to act for ourselves collectively through building the movement, through speaking out and mobilising the support that exists for the struggle. That’s what defeated the attack on abortion rights in the Cairns case.

[The Brisbane Pro-Choice Action Collective will hold a rally to call for the immediate repeal of all anti-abortion laws and for free, safe, accessible abortion on demand: December 4, 1pm in Brisbane Square (outside Casino). For more information see the Pro-Choice Action Collective website.].

High stakes in Queensland abortion fight

2010-10-26T15:28:00.001+10:00

from Direct Action

By Kathy Newnam

On October 12 a couple in Cairns will face trial under Queensland’s anti-abortions laws, with the prospect of years in prison if the charges are upheld. The case represents one of the most severe attacks on abortion rights in this country for decades.

The prosecution first came to light in April 2009, when the Cairns Post reported their first court appearance. Their house had been raided by the Cairns Criminal Investigations Branch on February 1, 2009, and charges laid two months later, on March 30. They have been charged under sections 225 and 226 of the Queensland Criminal Code, under the chapter “Offences Against Morality”.

The case was committed for trial in September 2009. During the committal hearing, the dangers that the case poses to abortion access became evident as the police prosecution argued a case that would amount to a common law ruling not dissimilar to the recent law enacted in Utah in the US, where a woman can now be charged with murder if she miscarries because of a “knowing or intentional act”.

In the committal hearing, the prosecution argued that it didn’t matter that it didn’t have proof of what drugs were used and didn’t have any proof that the drugs had caused a miscarriage or even any proof that the woman was pregnant. All it needed was proof that she had intended to procure a miscarriage — which police say they have in the couple’s statements.

Government distraction

The Queensland government has run a consistent campaign of distraction about the case, claiming it is nothing to do with abortion, that it relates to what it claims is the unsafe, illegal use of the abortion drug. Every element of the campaign is false: the drugs are neither illegal nor unsafe. Moreover, as the committal hearing clearly demonstrated, this case is about abortion, and the police are actively seeking a new precedent on abortion law. There are many interconnected reasons that they are doing this. Some of the factors are:

a direct anti-abortion influence. The anti-abortion forces are smarting from their defeat in Victoria with the decriminalisation of abortion in late 2008. They are fighting hard to ensure that the same does not happen in other states.
political wrangling between the Queensland police and the Labor government.
the constant fight by the police for increased powers. It would mean a huge increase in their powers if they were free to prosecute under the anti-abortion laws, or threaten to do so.

The police targeted a young, working-class couple in regional Cairns in a case that doesn’t involve a local doctor. This was a calculated decision. There is no way that they would pursue a case under the anti-abortion laws without considering the political and social response. They know that last time the state tried to use these laws, it resulted in a massive social and political backlash in favour of women’s rights.

In 1985, the Bjelke-Petersen National Party government ordered a raid on abortion clinics in Greenslopes, Brisbane, and in Townsville. The cops confiscated 47,000 confidential patient files. The raids were later found to be illegal. But the then attorney general, Des Sturgess, called for any women who’d had an abortion at the clinics to come forward. One woman responded, and charges were laid against two doctors at the Greenslopes clinic under the anti-abortion law (section 224).

A Courier-Mail poll found that 78% of people opposed the raids. There were protests in Brisbane and around the country. In 1986 the court handed down a “not guilty” verdict, the precedent that provides the basis for legal abortion in Queensland, similar to that in NSW and until 2008 in Victoria. The verdict, known as the McGuire ruling, has little to do with a fellow named McGuire and everything to do with the political pressure from the campaign, which gained widespread support from the women’s rights movement and the civil liberties and trade union movements as well as humanists and others.

Those movements are much weaker now than they were in the 1980s. This is no doubt one factor in police calculations about whether to prosecute this case. But there is no doubt that they think they have a better chance of success because there is no local doctor involved, which would bring into play a whole different range of social networks and resources.

The fact that it is not uncommon now for women in Australia to obtain abortion drugs in a way similar to what is alleged in the Cairns case is also of great concern to the anti-abortion forces. They have campaigned for years to prevent women getting access to the abortion drug. Despite the ban on RU-486 being lifted in 2006, it remains inaccessible through “normal” channels for most women. It is no wonder the anti-abortion forces are panicking at the prospect of women being able to bypass all the red tape, restrictions and financial barriers.

It is not just the anti-abortion forces against this. The medical establishment also doesn’t like being bypassed. That goes some way to explaining the ridiculous parallels that some doctors are drawing: that this scenario was somehow akin to a backyard abortion. The risks and complications of RU-486 are in fact less than those of many other drugs that can be ordered online — Viagra, for example. However, women should not have to source the drug overseas - RU-486 should be readily available.

Widespread support for abortion rights

It was to be expected that the government would shroud this attack in lies and misinformation. Attacks on abortion rights are not very popular. Support for abortion rights is still very strong; polls consistently show that around 80% support a woman’s right to choose. This is a very important legacy of the women’s liberation movement.

This support is the strength of the campaign. The response to campaigning on the street and on campus is excellent. There is a myth that abortion is unpopular or highly controversial. But the most common response is disbelief; young people in particular don’t realise that abortion is still subject to criminal law. However, it is true that abortion remains a taboo subject. This is part and parcel of the efforts to limit the control that women have over their bodies: women are made to feel guilty if they have an abortion. This would very quickly break down if the subject could be openly discussed — one in three women will have an abortion at some time in their lives.

Public campaigning can help break down the assumptions: the assumption that it is a moral issue; the assumption that women should feel guilty, or that they are strange if they don’t.

But while there is massive support, the campaign is starting from a low ebb. The real battle is not in convincing people that abortion is a right, or that it should be accessible. The real battle is breaking through the disempowerment and the illusions in the system. The real battle is to rebuild confidence that it is possible for protest movements to win.

Learning from recent history

Learning the lessons from history is going to be crucial in rebuilding the movement. One of the most important lessons is in the impacts and failure of liberalism — the idea that we can reform the system in our favour, that getting women into government and the bureaucracy was a solution. Doing that certainly benefited some women. A small minority gained tremendously, but at the expense of the movement and of working class women. Immense political manoeuvring ensured that the careers of a small number of women, most often organised through the Australian Labor Party, were smoothed and protected. The movement was supposed to support them and put the pressure on to get them their positions, but was not allowed to make any criticisms.

Of course, such a situation was unsustainable. With so much of the movement’s energies being sucked away into such avenues, the movement gradually dissipated. Throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s, political organising efforts continued around sporadic campaigns and annual marches for Reclaim the Night and International Women’s Day. But in the last few years, even IWD has not been marked with street protest in most cities, or they have been sapped of much of their political content.

In large part, the movement disappeared from the streets. It is the exceptions that demonstrate that it is not a lack of interest in the issues, particularly among young women, but a lack of organising and political leadership that has led to the decline.

Not only socialists and other radicals have recognised the decline of the movement. This decline has also dealt a few blows to the career feminists in recent years. Without a movement to keep the pressure on, many of the positions that gave these women their career paths have been abolished. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald for the 25th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act, Anne Summers stated:

“There is no doubt that during the ’80s when some of us were what used to be called femocrats, feminist bureaucrats with their beige suits and high salaries, used to be treated with contempt by a lot of the other women in the women’s movement. I think there was real danger, because we were so effective inside that the women’s movement, much as they abused us, came to rely on us. And then of course that made us hostages to political fortunes. So when the government changed, the Office of Status of Women lost all its power and its status and got kicked out of Prime Minister’s and all of the women’s desks and all of the departments were all got rid of. The women’s movement had become so dependent on having it done all inside government that we didn’t know how to and I think that 15 years later we are really in a state of paralysis. And so in retrospect I wish really that we hadn’t let the women’s movement outside government kind of link … I think getting the balance right between working inside and working outside is really important.”

There is not even a hint of the responsibility of liberal feminism for the misleadership of the movement. It is deceptive to claim that the movement unconsciously “came to rely” on the femocrats. This hides the fact that it was in fact a very conscious process: there was a great deal of political bullying, patronising or ignoring of dissenting voices. Women working within the system were above criticism; critics were slammed for betraying the “sisterhood”.

The ALP and abortion laws

For years, the movement was told by our so-called friends in the ALP that there was nothing to worry about, that the anti-abortion laws were a “dead letter”.

Socialists and other radicals within the movement have consistently argued that as long as the laws are on the books, they restrict access to abortion and are a constant threat — a weapon that could be used to turn back the clock. This is exactly what is happening in the Cairns case, and there is a resounding silence from our so-called friends, who still refuse to rock the boat because they put their own interests and careers ahead of the interests of women.

It is a very important lesson: we should not trust anybody who is protecting their own privileges within the system, even those who claim to be on our side.

Furthermore, we need to revive the contempt for the self-serving rhetoric about how “effective” the femocrats were. The gains of the women’s liberation movement were won despite their derailing of the movement, precisely because the movement was so powerful — not individuals, but a movement of hundreds and thousands of women organising. The system was forced to make concessions. Only when the movement had been derailed could they start taking back the concessions.

Ultimately liberal feminism is a failed strategy, and not because individual women were corrupt or sold out (though there is that too; Qld Premier Anna Bligh recently told the Courier-Mail: “I think like most people, my views on things have changed over time as I’ve gotten older and wiser”). It was a failed political strategy because the so-called positions of power are not where the power really lies. The parliament and the government bureaucracy are designed to uphold capitalist power. Even those with good intentions are still hostages to a system that is sexist and misogynist to the core.

In the abortion rights campaign, people often argue that pro-choice politicians are kowtowing to the anti-abortion minority for electoral reasons. This is only part of the picture. The reality is that, while this minority is well resourced, it does not have the political capacity that it claims. When 80% of people in Australia support a woman’s right to choose, and have done so over the past few decades, the argument that politicians back this minority for electoral reasons just doesn’t hold up.

A tool for controlling women

The anti-abortion shock troops provide justification for attacks on access to abortion. That is why they are presented as having more social weight than they really do. The growth of the anti-abortion movement was a direct response to women gaining greater rights, greater autonomy and greater control over their own lives. Restricting abortion access is a tool for controlling women — and a very effective one.

The violence of the anti-abortion movement indicates just how hard they will fight, as is especially evident in the US. The violent attacks against doctors and abortion service providers are not isolated incidents of the “lunatic fringe”. They are part of a highly calculated campaign to shut down women’s access to safe abortion.

The anti-abortion movement is nothing but shock troops for the capitalist system, which requires women to continue to play their socially dictated role in the family system by doing the unpaid labour that is essential to the rearing and maintenance of capitalism’s wage-slaves.

Moreover, women’s subjugation within the family system plays a crucial socialising role by defining women first and foremost as wives and mothers. This creates the ideological and psychological training for the perpetuation of women’s status as second-class citizens. The legal right to abortion challenges this ideological prison: women are not supposed to want anything other than motherhood so why would they want to have an abortion?

The theological, pseudo-scientific and moral opposition to abortion is about trying to force women to be prisoners of their reproductive systems. That situation helps to keep women imprisoned in the straitjacket of the family, in their primary social role as mothers, wives and carers, taking care of the young, the sick and the aged. It is all the better for the system if women are their own jailers.

This is why understanding the current capitalist crisis is so important to understanding the intensifying attacks on abortion rights. As capitalism tries to force working people to pay for the crisis, women as always bear the double burden; their exploitation as workers intensifies at the same time as their burden in the home is increased by forcing more of society’s responsibilities back onto the family unit.

This is also why we can never take the gains that we have made for granted. The system will always try to wrest them back by degrees. It is happening across the board today and has been for the past 15-20 years. And it is buffered by an intensifying ideological attack on women, the most visible element of which is the increasing objectification of women in popular culture.

It is easier for this to happen where the victories that we won were only partial victories. The victories around abortion rights are one of the best examples; despite the common-law rulings, the anti-abortion laws were kept on the books in most states.

A system that needs sexism

But even resounding victories, even with ongoing mobilisation and struggle, will not be enough. As long as capitalism exists, we will continue to face the same battles, the same threats to our rights. Capitalism is a barbaric system. It perpetuates war and devastating poverty upon the majority of the world’s population. It is a system that relies upon oppression, that needs racism, sexism and homophobia in order to survive.

The denial of women’s rights is systematic. That is why we should not be surprised at the outrageous attacks on our rights. We should expect nothing less of a misogynist and sexist system — a global system that condemns tens of thousands of women to death every year by denying them access to safe abortion.

There will be no women’s liberation until we overthrow this misogynist system. In this, the women’s liberation movement has common cause with all struggles against oppression and exploitation; capitalism is our common enemy. We need to learn the lessons of history and realise that when people unite against capitalism, revolution is possible. We can take inspiration from the magnificent gains that have been made for women’s rights in countries that have overthrown capitalism — in Venezuela, Cuba and Vietnam. After the first socialist revolution in history, in Russia in 1917, one of the first acts was to legalise abortion; it was the first country in the world to do so.

While there will be no women’s liberation without socialism, there will also be no socialism without the struggle for women’s liberation. Without empowering women in struggle, there will be no revolution. Sexism must be constantly challenged, and that includes within the social movements, on the left and in the socialist movement. Moreover, all of these struggles must be imbued with a commitment to women’s liberation and to being part of the struggle.

Many times in debates in the movement, radicals have been told that we are too serious, that we need to allow women to celebrate being women. It is a common refrain to try to dampen or isolate the sentiment for action. What they really mean is that we should celebrate the careers and fortunes of those who have done very well for themselves on the back of the movement. It ignores the lot of the majority of working class women, who face the daily grind against sexism, misogyny and exploitation throughout the world.

The movement for women’s liberation has to be based on internationalism and understand that no woman is free until all women are free. A movement with such an understanding will never again be derailed. It will never again accept the assurances of women who are only seeking to “free” themselves while they turn their backs on the majority of women. Such a movement will never be content with partial victories. It will not stop fighting until we win true women’s liberation — until it plays its part in overthrowing the capitalist system. And even then, it won’t rest, because there’ll still be plenty of work to do after the revolution!

Cairns abortion trial: now is the time to fight

2010-08-08T18:05:00.001+10:00

by Kathy Newnam

from Direct Action

A north Queensland couple will face court in Cairns on October 12 on charges brought under the state’s anti-abortion laws. A woman is facing charges for intent to procure a miscarriage, which carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison. Her partner is facing charges for assisting her, which carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. Around the country, abortion rights activists are gearing up for a national day of action to be held on October 9, the Saturday before the trial.

Currently, abortion in Queensland is legally accessible under a 1986 common law ruling which found grounds for legal abortion in the case of a threat to the physical or mental health of a woman. The Cairns case threatens to set a dangerous new precedent on the abortion laws. In the committal hearing for the case last September, the police prosecution argued that under the law the only evidence of a “crime” that it needed was that the woman had “intent” to procure a miscarriage. The prosecution argued that it did not need any proof of how the abortion had allegedly taken place or even if the woman was pregnant at the time.

Such a precedent would allow the laws to be used in a similar way to laws in various states across the US, which criminalise women who miscarry. For example, in January this year a pregnant woman in Iowa was charged with “attempted feticide” when she fell down stairs. She was arrested upon leaving the hospital and kept in jail for two days before the charges were dropped — they were only dropped because she was in her second, not her third, trimester, which is when the Iowa fetal “homicide” law applies. Fetal “homicide” laws, applying to the third trimester, exist in 37 states in the US. In March this year, Utah introduced a fetal “homicide” law that applies throughout the pregnancy. Some of the “knowing or intentional” acts that may be prosecuted under this law include smoking cigarettes during pregnancy and staying in an abusive relationship.

This is the reality of the international backlash against women’s rights. The agenda of the anti-abortion movement is to effectively make pregnant women state property, reducing them to nothing more than fetal incubators with no rights of their own. This is what is at stake in the Cairns abortion trial. The Queensland government knows this and it also knows that if the widespread support for abortion rights is mobilised it will be forced to act - to intervene in the case and to repeal the anti-abortion laws. This is why the government has worked hard to distract attention from the facts of the case. Premier Anna Bligh and her ministers have consistently argued that the charges are related to the way the abortion took place — by the alleged use of abortion drugs that the woman got from the Ukraine via her partner’s sister.

Bligh government’s lies

The government and other anti-abortion forces have argued that the charges arose because the woman did not have a prescription from a local doctor. This is an outright lie — the charges have been brought under the anti-abortion laws, not drug related laws. The anti-abortion nature of the case was made very clear by the police prosecution case during the committal hearing.

But along with these lies, Bligh’s campaign of confusion has based itself on the widespread misinformation about the abortion drugs — that they are unsafe. The corporate media have fanned the flames of confusion. In the lead up to the committal hearing last year, there were a series of articles in various mainstream papers about the supposed “black market” in abortion drugs. The corporate media consistently report that the Cairns case is about “illegal” drugs — another lie. The drugs allegedly used by the woman in the case are not banned in Australia. Moreover, they are statistically safer than many other drugs that can be ordered online, without a prescription, such as Viagra. In the Cairns case, the woman had full medical instructions on the use of the drugs.

Of course, women should not have to source abortion drugs from overseas. They should be freely available here. If the Queensland government was seriously concerned about the way in which women are accessing the abortion drug, this would be the issue it would address. Similarly, it would address the significant financial restrictions, which make abortion access a problem for many working-class women. In Cairns, for example, it costs up to $810 upfront for an abortion in the first trimester — of which only around $250 can be claimed back on Medicare.

But women’s access to safe abortion is not what the Bligh government is concerned with. It is lining up firmly with the anti-abortion forces. The government’s campaign of distraction is based upon the scare campaign that has been run for many years by the anti-abortion movement in order to prevent women from accessing the abortion drug, RU486. This campaign was partially defeated in 2006, when the ban on RU486 was lifted, but it remains inaccessible to most women in Australia because there is no pharmaceutical company that imports the drug. This means that individual practitioners have to apply to the Therapeutic Goods Administration to dispense the drug — having to jump through many hoops designed to deter potential applicants and thus restrict access to the drug.

This is the context in which the Cairns case has to be understood. While in large part women’s access to legal abortion is taken for granted, there are constant efforts to turn the clock back to the days of illegal backyard abortion. The aim of the anti-abortion movement is always and everywhere the complete ban on abortion. Its tactics differ according to the level of support that exists for women’s access to abortion. That is why some wings of the anti-abortion movement feign support for women’s rights — it is a ruse designed to disarm young women in particular, who have little or no knowledge of the reality of abortion access before it was legally accessible.

What has come as a surprise to many is that a supposed feminist, Bligh, would line up with the anti-abortion forces. But it should be no surprise that capitalist politicians like Bligh put their personal political fortunes ahead of the interests of women. Regardless of Bligh’s gender or her history in the women’s liberation movement, at the end of the day she is a capitalist politician whose career is dependent upon the machinations of a political system that is fundamentally anti-woman. The fact that her career is based in part on her reputation as a feminist only makes her role more despicable.

Capitalism and women’s oppression

Despite the concessions that were forced from capitalist governments by the women’s liberation movement, capitalism will always rely on the oppression of women – and controlling women’s fertility is fundamental to that system of oppression. Capitalism is a system that demands that women play the role of mothers and unpaid carers — to do the socially necessary work that capitalism would otherwise have to pay for such as child rearing, aged care and the plethora of tedious domestic tasks that a rational soci-

ety would make a public industry. Capitalist politicians have sold women the myth that in the “post-feminist era” they have equality with men. At the same time, these politicians and the corporate media seek to convince women that their continued actual inequality is a result of their own alleged individual failings.

The capitalist rulers’ backlash against women’s rights will only intensify as the capitalist economic crisis deepens. Capitalism needs to shift the blame — and shift the cost for its crisis onto working people. As always working women will bear a double burden — paying the price as workers and also in the home as cuts to social services place more burdens onto working-class families, in which women shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid housework.

The oppression of women is systematic. That is why capitalist governments, even those that feign support for women’s rights, will line up with the anti-woman forces organised in the anti-abortion movement. It is not, as some claim, for electoral reasons — opinion polls consistently register majority support for a woman’s right to choose abortion (up to 87% support was indicated by a recent report the Medical Journal of Australia). The anti-abortion movement are not electorally powerful, rather they provide a cover for the anti-woman agenda of capitalist governments.

It is the widespread support for abortion rights that explains the Bligh government’s campaign of distraction around the Cairns case. Moreover it explains why the police have targeted a young, working-class couple outside the state capital, a couple who don’t have the social networks and legal protections that would be bought into play if the case involved a local doctor.

The one thing that will stand in their way is the mobilisation of opposition on the streets — the building of a movement that they can’t afford to ignore. The last time the anti-abortion laws were used was in 1985 when two doctors were charged. The case met with widespread mobilisation of support for abortion rights, including support from the trade unions, civil liberties organisations and the women’s rights movement.

It was this protest movement that brought sufficient pressure to bear on the legal proceedings to result in the liberalised interpretation of the laws that allows for legal access to abortion.

The movement for abortion rights made many gains, but it remains at a low ebb today. This is not because majority support for abortion rights does not exist but because for too long women have accepted the assurances from within the political establishment, including ALP “feminists”, that the anti-abortion laws had become a dead-letter. While socialists and other radicals have always condemned such a approach and argued for complete repeal of the anti-abortion laws, the flaws of the don’t-rock-the-boat strategy are now clear for all to see — there is a woman facing seven years in prison for allegedly having an abortion and lining up to help lock her away are precisely those in the political establishment who gave us such assurances.

A fighting movement must be reforged and this time around it should settle for nothing less than complete repeal of all the anti-abortion laws and free, safe and accessible abortion on demand. Rebuilding such a movement can be done and it must be done. If a new precedent is set in the Cairns case, it will not only threaten abortion access for women in Queensland, but it will seriously embolden the anti-abortion forces around the country. The alternative is not the status quo; the alternative is the situation that continues to unfold in the US, where abortion rights are being continually whittled away and dangerous new laws introduced to control women’s bodies while the conservative leadership of the abortion rights movement holds back the movement through its strategy of reliance on the Democratic Party to protect legal access to abortion.

The campaign in Australia has already galvanised the existing abortion rights activist groups to form a national network which has initiated the national day of action on the Saturday before the Cairns trial. So far, there are rallies being held in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. More cities are expected to join the NDA in coming weeks. The Brisbane Pro-Choice Action Collective is also coordinating a convergence on Cairns to join with pro-choice supporters outside the court during the trial. Now is the time to get involved.

For more information visit the Pro-Choice Action Collective website.

Taking to the streets for abortion rights

2010-07-20T09:28:00.004+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

from Direct Action

On May 29 around 150 people took to the streets of Sydney as part of the campaign against the abortion charges brought against a couple in Cairns. The rally was organised by the Women’s Abortion Action Campaign (WAAC) and was chaired by WAAC activist Margaret Kirkby. There were contingents at the rally from Melbourne, Brisbane and participants from Adelaide and New Zealand. Speakers included Eurydice Aroney from Pro Choice NSW who spoke about the death of her grandmother from a backyard abortion; Gabe Kavanagh from the “F” Conference organising collective; Lee Rhiannon from the NSW Greens and Debbie Brennan from Radical Women, Melbourne. Below is the text of the speech given by Kathy Newnam on behalf of the Brisbane Pro-Choice Action Collective.

The Pro-Choice Action Collective is very proud to be part of this rally today — to be part of a movement with such a powerful history of solidarity and struggle. Right now, abortion rights in Australia is facing one of the most serious attacks for decades in the charging of the couple in Cairns under Queensland’s anti-abortion laws. For over a year now the young couple have been dragged through the legal process and media scrutiny, facing the prospect of years in prison. They had their house firebombed by anti-abortion bigots. Their lives turned upside down.

The Queensland government has done everything in its power to distract from the facts of the case. It has repeatedly claimed that the case is related to the way the abortion allegedly took place, that it’s related to the importation of the abortion drug. All lies. The drug that was allegedly used is not banned in Australia. In fact, in this case it was brought in through customs. The charges against the couple have been brought under the anti-abortion laws. Not drug related laws. The case against the couple is not related to how the abortion allegedly took place.

Worst of all is the government’s claims that the case is related to the safety of the abortion drug. This paternalistic rubbish is straight from the handbook of the anti-abortion movement. The corporate media backed up the government’s campaign of distraction with a scare campaign about the supposed dangerous “black market” in abortion drugs. It is true that it is not unusual for women to get hold of the drug from another country — because it is still very hard to get hold of here and the cost is prohibitive. But there is nothing unusual about this. There are many drugs that are available on-line, many with much more severe and commonly felt side effects than RU486 or misoprostol.

RU486 scare campaign

The scare campaign about women accessing RU486 is just another chapter in the long fight of the anti-abortion forces to stop women from accessing the drug. The entire political and medical establishment is appalled at the idea that a woman could take control into their own hands, despite all their attempts to prevent us doing so. Bligh’s government has lied about this case because it knows full well the widespread support that exists for a woman’s right to choose abortion And it knows that when people know about the case they are furious. There is intense anger in Queensland and increasingly around the country and shock that a woman can still face prison for abortion.

In the initial court proceedings, in September last year, it became very clear that the case was an attempt to set a dangerous new precedent on the laws in Queensland. The police prosecution argued that it did not matter that there was no proof of what the drug allegedly used was; no proof that the drugs caused a miscarriage. They even argued that it didn’t matter that there was no proof that the woman was even pregnant at the time. They argued that all they needed was that there was proof of “intent” to procure a miscarriage, which they claim to have in the couple’s statements.

Many people were shocked when the Cairns case was committed to trial after these proceedings. People thought that the system would take care of things, that surely the courts wouldn’t back this anti-abortion crusade. But we cannot afford to forget our own history — the police, the courts, the so called “justice” system have always been used against our rights. The only gains we have ever made, the only victories we have ever had have been the result of our own struggle. We cannot forget that. Because right now, the need for reviving that struggle is as great as ever. We cannot go back. The anti-abortion movement is especially targeting young women, who have no memory of what it was like before our movement won legal access to abortion. We cannot allow them to take this ground.

We know that one rally is not enough — we have to intensify our fight. We cannot accept the assurances from those within the political system. We, of course, should seek out and celebrate the genuine allies we have — but we cannot for a moment think that change is going to come from within the system. It never has.

The dangers of taking the assurances of those within the political system have never been clearer than what they are in Queensland right now. For decades women have been told that the abortion laws were a dead letter. That they would never be used. We’ve been told that if they were ever used that such a case would be quashed. The laws repealed. Anna Bligh is only the most high profile of our so-called friends who have sold us this lie for so many years. But she’s not the only one who is putting her political fortunes ahead of the interests of women. And it is high time that we called it out. Anyone who puts their careers, their political fortunes above the interests of women is no friend of our movement.

Those, like Bligh, who gained their step up in their political careers through our movement do have to answer to us. They did not get there on their own. They used our movement. They got to where they are on the back of the work of hundreds and thousands of women. They took the energies from our movement and what for? To not only turn their back on women — but to join in the campaigns against us. Bligh has led the charge against the Cairns couple. Her government has done everything it could to isolate the case.

Politically independent movement

Enough is enough. We have to return to building a movement independent of the political establishment. We are not a cheer squad for women in so called positions of power. And that’s not where the real power lies anyway. The real power lies with us and our collective action. We have to return to building a movement that empowers women at the grassroots, that educates and organises political action to voice our demands. Back out here on the streets. This is where we belong. This is where we are going to win.

Taking our protest to the streets is not “old hat”. It’s learning the lessons from our own history. We don’t have to re-invent the wheel and we don’t have to make the same mistakes over. We haven’t lost ground because what we did in the past didn’t work. We’ve lost ground because we stopped doing it. Because we stopped taking to the streets, taking collective political action. Through standing together we break the isolation. All the new technology can help in our campaigns — but virtual protests, with Facebook or an email campaign has nothing on this — standing together with hundreds of others and demonstrating our collective strength.

Standing together in collective action also reminds us of that strength and it reminds us that what we do in the fight for women’s rights does matter. Every day the system that we’re fighting tries to take that away from us. Tries to make us feel hopeless. Tries to convince us that others can do it better, that we should just trust in this or that leader to take care of things. We can’t rely on anyone else. It is up to us. All of us. Our strength is in our numbers and we need to get more organised, more active and we need to convince more people to join our movement.

The trial date for the Cairns case has not been set yet. But we do know that on the Saturday before the trial there will be rallies across the country. And we have to get prepared now: more people need to know and understand what is behind the case. When the couple walk into court, they need to know that they have the support of people all across the country. That they are not alone. And the court needs to know that too. They like to make a pretence that the so-called legal system is above politics — but it’s not and it never has been.

In the 1980s it was this movement that built the pressure that led to the legal decisions in favour of abortion — a movement that was built in workplaces, campuses, schools and out on the streets. In Queensland when two doctors were charged under these rotten laws, solidarity actions around the country were an important part of building that pressure. Right now, this solidarity is even more important. This time it is not doctors that have been targeted. It is a young working class couple from regional Cairns. They’ve charged this couple because they think they can get away with it. It is up to us to prove them wrong. It’s up to us to break the isolation.

We have to send the message loud and clear right across the country that we will not stand back while our rights are taken away. This case has already devastated the lives of one young couple — but if the charges are upheld, it has the potential to destroy many more lives as it emboldens the anti-abortion forces. We cannot let that happen. We will not let that happen. We will stand in solidarity. We will defeat this attack. We will rebuild a fighting movement that can go back on the offensive for free, safe, accessible abortion on demand.

[For more information about the campaign visit the Pro-Choice Action Collective website.]

Drop the abortion charges: campaign gains national momentum

2010-05-06T14:42:00.001+10:00

By Kathy Newnam
from Direct Action

On April 10-11, the first feminist conference to be held in Sydney in more than 10 years attracted more than 500 people. The “F” Conference was organised to re-ignite feminist organising in Sydney, though there were many participants from other cities also. There was a tangible enthusiasm and excitement evident throughout the conference — reflecting the gap that has arisen in the last decade between the support for feminism and the decline of grass-roots organising.

The sentiment for action was reflected in the strong support for the abortion rights campaign and particularly the campaign against the charges brought against a Cairns couple under Queensland’s anti-abortion laws. Two workshops about the campaign were organised as part of the conference by a national network of abortion activists comprising the Women’s Abortion Action Campaign (NSW), Pro-Choice Action Collective (Qld) and Radical Women (Vic).

The conference passed a motion in support of the campaign for free, safe, accessible abortion on demand and called for the immediate dropping of the charges against the Cairns couple, rejecting the Queensland government’s lies and distractions in relation to the case .

The conference also supported the upcoming protests as part of the campaign, including the National Day of Action on the Saturday before the Cairns case goes to trial; the convergence on Cairns being organised by the Pro-Choice Action Collective for the days the trial is held; and the national rally for abortion rights being held in Sydney on May 29.

The May 29 rally is being organised by the Women’s Abortion Action Campaign in response to the increasing anti-abortion attacks within Australia and internationally, and will mobilise support in defence of the Cairns couple. The rally will coincide with a conference of the “International Federation of Right to Life Associations” being held in Sydney on the same day. Contingents to the rally are being organised from Brisbane and Melbourne.

Anti-abortion movement gains ground in US

2010-04-28T00:33:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam
from Direct Action

Women could be charged with murder in the US state of Utah if they have a miscarriage caused by an “intentional or knowing act”. On March 8, the state’s governor signed into law a bill to that effect. The bill was introduced to the legislature by Republican representative and former cop Carl Wimmer, who told the US ABC that he sponsored the bill “because I’m pro-life and anti-abortion and I’m doing everything in my power to restrict abortions in Utah”. Wimmer and anti-abortion groups have pledged to campaign for similar legislation in other states.

The law brings all women who miscarry under suspicion. Any woman who miscarried could be brought to the attention of the state and have to justify herself. Even in cases where charges were not laid, the law increases social control and state interference in women’s lives. It exposes many more women to scrutiny and harassment from the state — up to one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage.

Wimmer claims the bill was a response to a case in which a 17-year-old woman paid $150 for a man to beat her up after her boyfriend threatened to leave her if she did not terminate her pregnancy. The fact that the anti-abortionists would criminalise a woman who was forced into such horrific circumstances demonstrates their deep misogyny. They deny women social rights and control over their own lives, deny them access to safe abortion and then seek to criminalise women who are forced to take desperate measures.

Increased restrictions

The Utah bill is about further enforcing exactly the sort of social controls over women that lead to such situations in the first place. This new law and the campaign to make it a national model are part of a raft of laws and regulations that the anti-abortion movement is fighting for to increase state control over women’s bodies and deny access to abortion. These include state legislation mandating parental involvement in abortions for minors, mandating counselling and waiting periods for abortion, restricting insurance coverage and cutting funding of abortion under Medicaid. The anti-abortion movement also runs terror campaigns against abortion clinics and doctors.

Some statistics from the Guttmacher Institute (a New York-based non-profit organisation that focuses on reproductive issues) attest to the increasing restrictions on abortion:

The number of US abortion providers declined by 2% between 2000 and 2005 (from 1819 to 1787). Eighty-seven per cent of all US counties lacked an abortion provider in 2005; 35% of women live in those counties. Thirty-five states currently enforce parental consent or notification laws for minors seeking an abortion. While the Supreme Court ruled that minors must have an alternative to parental involvement, such as the ability to seek a court order authorising the procedure, this is a very difficult proposition for someone with no knowledge or experience of the legal system.

Congress has barred the use of federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortions, except when the woman’s life would be endangered by a full-term pregnancy or in cases of rape or incest. In 2005, the cost of a non-hospital abortion with local anaesthesia at 10 weeks’ gestation ranged from $90 to $1800; the average was $413.

‘Fetal homicide’

So called “fetal homicide” laws already exist in 37 states, applying to women in their third trimester of pregnancy. The Utah law applies to the entire pregnancy.

In Iowa, the “feticide” law was used to charge a woman in January after she fell down some stairs while she was pregnant. She went to a hospital emergency department, where she had a conversation with a nurse about the difficulties she was having and that she had considered adoption or abortion before deciding to go through with the pregnancy. The conversation was reported to a doctor, who called the police. She was arrested as she left the hospital and taken to jail. Her two children did not know where she was while she was in prison for two days. She was charged with “attempted feticide”. The charges were dropped only because she was in her second, not her third, trimester, which is when the laws apply. But the damage to her life was already done. As she told the Des Moines Register newspaper, “My name is ruined. Just Google it. Now I won’t even be able to get a job.”

This case was not a mistake or an unintended consequence. While the justifications are shrouded in theological garb, the laws and attempts to restrict abortion are not about “life” or the fetus — they are about control over women’s bodies and lives. The Utah laws and those like them are the logical conclusion of the attempts to create complete social control over women’s bodies — reducing them to nothing more than incubators (when they are not busy looking after men’s needs).

The anti-abortion movement has intensified its campaign as the women’s rights movement has won social gains and independence for women, threatening the social roles that capitalist society dictates for women: mothers, carers, housewives. The anti-abortion campaign is part of a broader social agenda to force women to accept these roles and their second-class status in capitalist society.

Right-wing agenda

It is of great social and economic advantage to capitalism to have women accept this role — providing unpaid labour in the home and creating the conditions in which women’s paid labour is attributed less value than men’s, thus creating a downward pull on wages. The anti-abortion agenda goes hand in hand with the attempts to sow divisions among the working people and weaken the struggles of the oppressed — in this case to weaken the working class by weakening women’s position in society. It is no coincidence that the anti-abortionists are strongly connected with other pro-capitalist political movements. Utah legislator Wimmer, for example, is also a supporter of the reactionary, racist Tea Party movement.

The same can be said of the anti-abortion movement in Australia. A recent anti-abortion rally in Brisbane was sponsored by a range of groups including the ultra-rightist National Civic Council and Democratic Labour Party. The anti-abortion movement in Australia studies closely the tactics of its counterpart in the US. In 2006, for example, it toured Terri Herring, a prominent anti-abortion campaigner from Mississippi, whose anti-abortion group claims credit for shutting down five abortion clinics in the state and successfully campaigning for 15 anti-abortion laws.

While the anti-abortion movement has not had the same success in Australia, the current case in Cairns of a couple charged under Queensland’s anti-abortion laws demonstrates that there is no room for complacency. During the committal hearing in the Cairns case, the interpretation of the laws that the police prosecution sought would allow charges to be brought against women along the same lines being sought by the anti-abortionists in Utah. The prosecution argued that it didn’t matter that there was no proof that the woman was pregnant; no proof of what the drugs allegedly used were; no proof that the drugs caused a miscarriage. They argued that all they needed to show was that there was “intent” to procure a miscarriage. Just as in Utah, the state is seeking complete control over women’s bodies — an attempt that must be resisted and defeated.

[For information about the Cairns case and the campaign for the dropping of the charges visist the Pro-Choice Action Collective website.]

Back to the backyard? NO WAY!

2010-03-14T16:02:00.003+10:00

BRISBANE, March 13 - A very lively protest was held today against an anti-abortion rally in town. There was about 70 of us over the four hour protest. Everyone kept chanting and speaking out for duration of the protest, even as the massive PA at the anti-abortion rally tried to drown us out with their Christian rock band. Lots of hoarse voices tonight!

We gathered at Parliament and marched to Queens Park where the anti-abortion rally was held. We spoke out against the abortion charges against the Cairns couple. We spoke out against the attacks on our rights to access abortion. We stood in solidarity with our sisters here and around the world who cannot access safe abortion. Usually we hold a minute silence to remember our sisters who have died because they could not access safe abortion - but in the face of the bigotry from the anti-abortion rally, we held a minutes noise instead. Loud.

The anti-abortion rally was about 500-600 people. Last year it was 1000 and they were hoping for 2000 this year. The "Democratic Labour Party" thugs stood at the entrance of the rally.

The cops came out to defend the anti-abortion bigots. They threatened to arrest people for 'public nuisance' for using megaphones. When we started marching around the park, they very aggressively stopped us - arresting one person violently and punching another in the face. Everyone was OK, even those who are a little bruised. All were disgusted and outraged at the police violence against a peaceful demonstration.

Quite a few people joined in the protest. We got a lot of support from passers-by, including on our march to the watch house afterward, where we waited for our comrade who'd been arrested to be released. We waited about two hours (we ate food and played cards on the pavement while we waited).

Today we resisted. We were loud. We were determined. We held our ground in the face of the attempts to silence and intimidate us.

Not the church, not the state - women will decide their fate.

No more distractions: Drop the abortion charges!

2009-12-08T09:22:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

From Direct Action

[On November 21, a 100-strong abortion rights rally was held in Brisbane. The rally demanded the dropping of the abortion charges brought against a young Cairns couple, the repeal of all anti-abortion laws and free, safe and accessible abortion on demand. The rally was organised by the Pro-Choice Action Collective and supported by a range of organisations including the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Humanist Society of Queensland, the University of Queensland Women’s Collective, the Brisbane Rape and Incest Survivors Support Centre, Pro-Choice Queensland and the Union of Australian Women (Brisbane) and abortion rights groups around the country. The rally was addressed by Margaret Kirkby from the Women’s Abortion Action Campaign (NSW), which had organised a contingent to travel to Brisbane for the rally. Greetings were received from the Campaign for Women’s Reproductive Rights (Victoria) and the women’s collective of the Murdoch Student Guild (WA). The following is the speech delivered to the rally by Kathy Newnam on behalf of the Pro-Choice Action Collective. Newnam is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party. For more information about the Pro-Choice Action Collective, visit the Pro-Choice Action Collective website.]

Since the last time we rallied here in August more has become clear about the prosecution in Cairns. Through the committal hearing in early September it became evident that the police have seen this case as an opportunity to set a new precedent on abortion law. They are seeking to set back access to abortion — and it is no coincidence that the charges are in a case related to the abortion drug — which has the potential to give so many women greater access to abortion and control over their own bodies. The anti-abortion forces know this and that is why they have done everything in their power to stop women in this country from having access to RU486. They have spent years spreading lies and misinformation about the drug.

In the Cairns case, the anti-abortion forces are going on the offensive. In bringing the case, the police have targeted a young working class couple in regional Cairns because they think that their isolation means they will be alone. We are here again today to say they are wrong. The Cairns couple are not on their own. We stand in solidarity here today and we will keep fighting until this attack is defeated. The charges against the Cairns couple are an attack on us all.

There are some that say that it is just an anomaly — that the case is not related to abortion at all. That it is only because of the way the abortion took place, because the young woman did not have a prescription for the drug. This is a total distraction and one that we must reject outright along with all the lies that have been peddled in the corporate media and by [Queensland Premier Anna] Bligh and her ministers. They say that the drug is illegal — earlier media reports were referring to it as “contraband”. The abortion drug is not banned in Australia. It is not an illegal drug. They say that the drug was “smuggled” into the country. Another lie. During the court hearing the young man who has been charged for helping his partner get the drug, told the court through his lawyer that it had been brought into the country through customs.

Another lie, especially peddled by the premier, is that it was unsafe. This has hit a chord even amongst some feminists. But when we look at the facts, this is unraveled as yet another distraction. The abortion drug is very safe. Statistically safer in fact than other drugs that can be ordered on line — Viagra for example. The complications that can arise from using RU486 are similar to those from a spontaneous miscarriage and are treated in the same way. The young woman had full written instructions about the drug. She had support from her partner and her family and would have had the same access to medical facilities as someone who had got the drug on prescription if complications had arisen.

This “safety” distraction being peddled by the premier is in fact one of the most hypocritical and disgraceful parts of her participation in this case. It is nothing but paternalistic rubbish to assume that women need protecting from themselves. And as a once-was-feminist-campaigner, Bligh would be only too aware that criminalising abortion is one of the gravest risks to women’s health and women’s lives. The real problem is the limits on access to abortion — that is what is wrong and that is what the government should be acting on. We need free and accessible abortion on demand. We need widespread education campaigns and easily accessible information about the services available for all women.

Until these charges were brought, RU486 was available from two doctors in Cairns. Some people have said that’s what the young woman should have done. But this betrays a real ignorance of the realities faced, especially for young women and for poor women. Many women don’t know where to access the information about abortion services. Many women can’t afford the upfront costs and don’t know how they can get around these barriers. This blame-the-victim attitude is one that has no relation whatsoever to the realities faced by women without the social connections and without the money.

The case is now with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Even though the case has been committed to trial, under the Queensland legal system, a committal does not necessarily mean there will be a trial — the DPP can drop the case right now. And that’s what it should do — immediately. Any case against the couple is an attack on abortion rights. They did nothing wrong.

We have to reject the campaign of distraction and we have to realise where it is coming from. The government knows that it needs a distraction. These are charges brought under some of the most unpopular laws on the books. Over 80% of people in this country support a woman’s right to choose abortion. Last time the laws were used in Queensland there was a massive social and political response and protest that led to the liberalised access to abortion that we have today. In 1985, when the Queensland Police stormed the clinics in Greenslopes and Townsville there was widespread outrage — a Newspoll survey found that 78% of people opposed the raids.

Can you even imagine if they did that today? If they raided an abortion clinic and illegally stole confidential files like they did in 1985? Can you imagine the sort of protests that would spark? It is so far removed from today’s reality that it seems absurd to suggest it. But that is exactly the context in which we have to understand the Cairns case. The police have initiated and pursued this case because they’ve seen an opportunity to do so without triggering that sort of outrage.

This case has been brought because they think they can get away with it. It is up to us to prove them wrong — just like they were back in 1985. It is up to us to cut through the lies and the distractions and tell it as it is — these charges are the most serious attack on abortion rights for decades. And today we declare that we will fight this attack — and we will win.

We have to realise where this attack is coming from. Often we point out how old and outdated the anti-abortion laws are to highlight how backward they are. But when we do this we can also misrepresent the reality of society today. These laws are not just a remnant of the bad old days when women were considered the property of men. They are not just a hang-over from a sexist past. We still live in a society where women are considered the property of men. We still live is a sexist society. We still live in a society that wants to dictate that our reason for existence is to breed and mother – to cook and clean and all the other domestic work that society would otherwise have to pay for.

We still live in a society that wants to tell us what we can do with our lives and with our bodies. That is why we have so-called pro-choice politicians toeing the political line. Because once you start playing the political game, once you start doing things the way that the system dictates then you are dancing to someone else’s tune. When you are dependent on the political system for your survival, for your career, then you have vested interest in maintaining the status quo whether you are aware of it or not.

It’s not a lack of courage that stops Bligh from acting. It’s not about the character of individual politicians — it’s about politics. We can see that in the justifications that Bligh has peddled for not acting on the Cairns case and for not repealing the laws. There’s a lot of talk about due process and timeliness.

That it wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t be proper to intervene. Well it’s very hard to stomach all this talk of what is right and proper when a young woman is facing seven years prison for having an abortion – when her house has been firebombed and she is living under siege.

We only have to look to history to know that the laws, the courts, the police and parliament have always been used against women. The only way that we have ever gotten justice from the system is through fighting. Fighting outside the system. Fighting out here on the streets; through political protest. Not through begging for justice but by demanding it and by saying loudly that we won’t stop fighting until our demands are met. That’s exactly what we are saying today. We demand action and we don’t care what it take — we demand the charges be dropped immediately. We demand a repeal of the anti-abortion laws. And today we commit to fighting this as long as it takes.

Our movement has had many victories in the past – but often the popularly known history of these movements only reflects on the high points and high profile actions. But the real story is that these victories were premised upon a lot of ground work by thousands and thousands of people. They were premised upon the day-to-day work of organising, of meetings, leafleting, postering, of working to convince people and winning support from many organisations including from trade unions. They were premised upon hundreds of smaller protests like this one today.

All of us here today have a role to play in building this campaign. We face constant bombardment in so many ways that tells us that what we do doesn’t matter – that we can’t change things. But the only reason that the political system spends so energy in trying to convince us of this is because they know that it is not true. What we do does matter. We matter and we should never, ever let anyone convince us otherwise. We’ll keep fighting and we will win. Drop the charges! Repeal the laws! Abortion rights now!

[For more information about the Pro-Choice Action Collective, visit the Pro-Choice Action Collective website.]

Abortion rights under attack

2009-09-29T21:45:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

From Direct Action

A Cairns couple were committed to trial on June 11 on charges brought under the anti-abortion laws in the Queensland criminal code. The charges carry sentences of seven years’ prison for the woman for having an abortion and three years for her male partner for assisting her. The case against the couple rests upon their admission to having used an abortion drug.

The case has highlighted just how thoroughly reactionary the anti-abortion laws are. Section 225 of the criminal code reads: “Any woman who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever, or permits any such thing or means to be administered or used to her, is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for 7 years.” The criminal codes of NSW, South Australia and Tasmania contain almost identical wording.

The defence lawyers argued that there is no evidence of what the drug was or even if the woman was pregnant at the time of taking the drug. According to the police prosecution, this is not relevant according to the law. The facts blow out of the water the Queensland Labor government’s claim that the case is related to the use of an abortion drug that was obtained from overseas. The government continues to try to distract from the anti-abortion nature of the case by claiming that the drug was “smuggled” into the country — despite the fact that it is not a banned drug and that it was brought in through customs. The only relevance of the way in which the abortion was done is the fact that no local doctor was involved. This gave the police the confidence to initiate and pursue the charges.

The prosecution of the Cairns couple is a highly calculated move designed to create a new legal precedent to set back women’s access to abortion. During the committal hearing on September 3, the Cairns Magistrates Court heard that the couple’s house was raided by the Cairns Criminal Investigations Branch on February 1, at which time the couple told the police about the abortion. Charges against them were not laid until March 30. The police have thus seen an opportunity to activate the anti-abortion laws — by targeting an isolated, working-class couple in regional Cairns (who were not even aware that abortion is still subject to criminal prosecution) without the social networks and resources that would be brought into play if a doctor was charged.

The state government’s campaign of distraction has been backed up by sensationalism and misreporting in the corporate media. One example was an article in the September 18 Melbourne Age in which Cosima Marriner wrote that “perhaps one of the saddest aspects of the Cairns abortion case is that Ms Leach would not be facing jail if she, like many other Australian women do every year, had gone to a doctor to perform the abortion … it’s not as if terminations aren’t available in Queensland hospitals and clinics”. This completely ignores the financial barriers: abortions in Cairns cost upward of $800. It ignores the lack of information available to women about abortion services and the social stigma surrounding abortion, which is particularly hard on young women in rural and regional areas. But the most important fact is that under the criminal code any woman who has an abortion — seeks to “procure her own miscarriage” — and anyone who assists her can be charged and prosecuted.

More than 14,000 abortions take place in Queensland each year, and there has not been a prosecution under the anti-abortion laws since two doctors were charged in 1986. In that case, the doctors were found not guilty. The case created a precedent for legal abortion when there is a risk to a woman’s life or mental health. However, the court finding was explicitly against “abortion on demand”. It is only the widespread public support for abortion rights that has restrained the police from enforcing the laws — a situation that means that many people are not even aware that abortion is still illegal.

Role of the police

There is also a widespread misconception, even among abortion rights campaigners, that access to abortion beyond what is “lawful” is based on the “good will” of the police who “turn a blind eye” to the abortion clinics. This denies the historical role and interests of the police in maintaining the illegality of abortion. The police have been on the front line of attacks against abortion access, from the clinic raids in the 1980s to the long history of attacks on pro-choice protests. There was also widespread police corruption associated with the backyard abortion industry before the abortion rights movement won the access that exists today. The police are always pushing for increased powers — and the ability to enforce the anti-abortion laws would mean a marked increase in their power over a large proportion of the population; one in three Queensland women will have an abortion at some time in their lives.

The 1986 court ruling, and similar rulings in Victoria and NSW in the 1980s, were the product of massive political pressure brought to bear by the abortion rights movement. It is not just the legal precedents that have held back prosecution. The police have not enforced the laws since 1986 because they couldn’t. To do so would have risked massive protests that could turn things in favour of women’s rights, which is precisely what led to the partial victory of the 1986 case.

But that is the problem with a partial victory. Capitalist governments always give as small concessions as they can get away with, to quiet the demands of the movement. The 1986 ruling found the doctors not guilty and gave grounds for “lawful” abortion, but also saved the laws. It kept them on the books for use at a later date, which is what has happened now. The police have made a calculated political judgment: they think they can get away with the Cairns prosecution to create a new legal precedent.

Bligh distraction campaign

The once-was-a-feminist-campaigner, Labor Premier Anna Bligh, is only too aware of this history, which is why her government has worked hard not only to distort the facts but also to distract attention from, and add to the isolation of the case. On the day before the committal hearing began in Cairns, the government introduced legislation to the parliament to extend the legal defence for doctors who perform an abortion in the case of a risk to a woman’s life to include medical as well as surgical abortion. Much of the media reporting of the changes implied that they would prevent a situation like the one in Cairns arising again, but this is completely untrue. They will do nothing to broaden women’s legal access to abortion.

Bligh’s move was ostensibly in response to a ban by doctors on carrying out medical abortions in the state’s public hospitals. The ban has still not been lifted; doctors are continuing to restrict women’s access to abortion based on concern for their medical practices and the say-so of the medical insurance companies. Prior to this ban, limited abortion services were available in public hospitals when a woman’s life was at risk by continuing a pregnancy. What the widespread media attention to the ban has not covered is the fact that any woman who requires an abortion after 15 weeks and does not meet the strict criteria of the public hospitals has to travel to Victoria because there are no clinics in Queensland that offer abortions after 15 weeks.

Bligh continues to claim that her government will not seek to repeal the anti-abortion laws because such legislation would not have enough support in parliament. Even if this claim were true, it rests upon the assumption that the ALP would allow a conscience vote on the issue. The conscience vote on abortion law (which is enshrined in ALP policy) is thoroughly anti-woman. Capitalist politicians may be entitled to their quaint religious views that instruct their “consciences”, but they should not be entitled to impose those views on the mass of women via the law. Abortion access is not a question of “conscience”; it is an issue of women’s democratic right to be able to control their own bodies.

The Bligh government is doing whatever it can to isolate the case of the Cairns couple, which is all the more reason that supporters of abortion rights need to speak out and join the growing campaign for the dropping of the charges and repeal of the anti-abortion laws. The next abortion rights rally will be held in Brisbane on November 21, at 11am in Queens Park (on the corner George and Elizabeth streets). For more information visit the Brisbane Pro-Choice Action Collective web site. Drop the abortion charges! Repeal all anti-abortion laws! Free, safe, accessible abortion on demand!

Abortion rights campaign gathers momentum

2009-09-07T22:50:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

From Direct Action

A 300 strong protest was held in Brisbane on August 29 to demand the dropping of the abortion charges against a Cairns couple. The rally also demanded the immediate repeal of the anti-abortion laws under which the couple have been charged. Under the Queensland criminal code, a woman can face up to seven years’ prison for having an abortion (section 224), anyone assisting a woman with an abortion can face up to seven years (section 225), and a doctor can face up to 14 years for carrying out an abortion (section 226).

Several speakers at the rally condemned the attempts of Premier Anna Bligh to distract attention in the Cairns case away from the abortion laws. Bligh has repeatedly claimed that the charges were brought because the woman took an abortion drug without a prescription — instead acquiring it via her partner’s sister. The truth is that any woman who took RU486, on prescription or not, along with anyone who assisted her, could be charged under the anti-abortion laws.

Abortion is accessible in Queensland under a liberal interpretation of the laws in a court finding in 1986, in which two doctors were found not guilty on charges brought under section 226. The case gave legal grounds for “lawful” abortion — when a woman’s physical or mental health was at risk from continuing a pregnancy. While the finding was explicit that the laws did not allow “abortion on demand”, the procedure has been widely accessible because the public support for abortion rights that led to this decision has also stayed the hand of the state in enforcing the laws.

Restricted access

The Cairns case is the first test of the laws in Queensland since the 1986 ruling. If the charges were to be upheld, it would be a massive setback for abortion access in Queensland. Already the charges have led to restrictions on access to the abortion drug RU486. On August 21, it was announced that the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital had stopped providing medical abortion services — instead referring women to NSW. Other hospitals throughout Queensland have followed suit, bringing back memories of the days of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government, when many women had to travel across the border to access abortion.

While this may be a tactic designed to increase pressure on the government to change the laws, denying women their right to abortion services is a dangerous and regressive tactic. It cedes ground to the anti-abortion forces — ground that has been hard fought for by the abortion rights movement, and which no one, regardless of intentions, has any right to give away. The tactic also runs the risk of backfiring — with the government agreeing to greater legal protection for doctors without any fundamental changes to the laws.

The government’s response has been to amend section 282 of the criminal code to include medical abortion. This section has provided legal cover for doctors who carry out abortions for “the preservation of the mother’s life”, but referred only to a “surgical operation” — i.e. not the use of abortion drugs.

This amendment is designed to quell the protest from within the medical profession and return to “business as usual”. But business as usual denies many women access to abortion services — it is estimated that around a quarter of GPs in Queensland will not refer women to abortion services, under cover of the anti-abortion laws. Furthermore, the cost is also a major barrier for many women. In Cairns, for example, it costs upward of $800 up front for a surgical abortion, only $260 of which can be claimed back through Medicare.

The government has lined up with the anti-abortion groups such as Queensland Cherish Life, which are arguing against repeal of the laws because women can already access abortion. Cherish Life president Therese Martin told the August 23 Catholic Leader: “The fact that 15,000 Queensland women have abortions each year shows that unfortunately there is no difficulty in obtaining an abortion in this state.”

They want to maintain the current laws because they know that the laws are an ever present legal threat, and also because they are used by anti-abortion forces to limit the availability of abortion services within the public health system. The laws are also used to enforce the theologically based anti-scientific moralism of the anti-abortion forces — a sentiment Martin expressed to the Catholic Leader: “[E]ven though not often enforced, the law against abortion still has a vital educative role, instructing society that the intentional killing of pre-born humans is totally wrong”.

RU486

The laws play an important role in preventing the extension of abortion services, which is an urgent necessity, especially in rural and regional areas. The role that abortion drugs can play in resolving many of the issues of access helps explain the ferocity of the campaign against RU486. It also helps to explain why the first test of the laws for decades has come about in relation to the use of the abortion drug.

This anti-RU486 campaign was partially defeated in 2006, when regulation of the drug was returned to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, thus lifting the ban imposed by the then federal health minister, Tony Abbott. Since that time, no pharmaceutical company has imported the drug, leaving it to individual medical practitioners to apply to do so. This situation is set to change, a pharmaceutical company having applied to import the drug.

While the provision of RU486 will go a long way to resolving the issues of abortion access, the fight for full abortion services for all women is still necessary. RU486 is not an option for all women; it can only be used during the first nine weeks of pregnancy and, like all drugs, is not appropriate for everyone.

There has been a ramped-up campaign against RU486 since the Cairns charges were brought, including a spate of articles in the corporate media in early August about the so-called “black market trade” in abortion drugs. An article in the Australian on August 4 cited an example of this so called “black market”: a woman who had “obtained the RU486 from a doctor in India” and then seen a doctor in Brisbane and “indicated she had either taken the pill or would take it that day”. This is thoroughly racist, implying that the medical advice of a doctor in India does not count.

The sensationalism about RU486 has created a mystification about the drug and its use in Australia. It plays into the hands of the Bligh government in its attempt to divert attention from the facts of the Cairns case. In particular, Bligh has attempted to portray her concern as being about the safety of the drug being taken without medical advice. This denies the facts of the case, where the young woman allegedly had full written instructions from a doctor and would have had the same access to medical services as any other woman if complications arose. But the fundamental contradiction in Bligh’s feigned concern about “safety” is that it is the criminalisation of abortion and the lack of services that create the conditions that force women into unsafe abortions.

The final fall-back of the Bligh government is that changes to the laws might result in greater restrictions. Bligh contends that a bill to reform the anti-abortion laws would not pass unamended because the “conscience vote” means Labor votes are not guaranteed (despite the repeal of the laws being ALP policy). This is the same argument that has been used by ALP politicians for decades: “Don’t rock the boat”. It has always been a bankrupt argument used by false friends of the movement to justify their refusal to act, but is all the more galling when the boat has well and truly been rocked.

The refusal to act by the likes of Bligh has nothing to do with concern about the situation getting worse and everything to do with protecting their political careers. They are not willing to rock the boat because their political careers rely on support from within the political system, a system that is sexist to its heart.

The fact that the campaign of distraction by the Queensland government is being led by a once-was-feminist campaigner demonstrates very clearly what socialists and other radicals within the women’s liberation movement have argued for decades: women’s rights cannot be won simply by lobbying capitalist politicians. The strategy of getting the “right people” into the “right places” is bankrupt because the system itself rests upon the oppression of women.

Capitalist society needs women to continue to carry out the unpaid work in homes — childcare, looking after the sick and the aged and all the associated domestic chores. Because women’s primary role is defined as mothers and carers, women’s paid employment is treated by capitalist society as secondary, thus providing justification for paying women less. This in turn creates a downward pressure on the wages of all working people.

The ruling class fights to maintain women’s second-class role in society to ensure that women themselves continue to be willing to accept the roles that society dictates. They do this through promoting the idea that women’s primary social role is as mothers and carers, and they do it through the imposition of laws that restrict women’s control of their lives. This is what underlies the struggle for abortion access; it is a struggle against capitalist society’s attempt to deny women control over their bodies. It also explains the guilt and stigma that this society creates around abortion. As feminists continue to challenge and break down the legal and financial barriers to abortion, capitalist politicians and media commentators, including ostensible “feminists”, peddle the idea that abortion is a “moral dilemma” for women in order to create another barrier to women making choices about their own bodies.

[The Brisbane Pro-Choice Action Collective will hold a public meeting to hear reports from the Cairns court hearing and discuss further steps in the campaign: September 7, 6:30pm at the TLC Building, 16 Peel St (2nd floor), South Brisbane. Phone Kathy on 0400 720 757.]

Women's liberation and the struggle for socialist politics in Indonesia

2009-09-07T22:39:00.000+10:00

By Sam King

From Direct Action

The National Network for Women’s Liberation (Jaringan Nasional Perempuan Mahardika - JNPM) is an Indonesian women’s liberation organisation consisting of local women’s committees, coordinating bodies and women’s sections of labour, student, peasant and urban poor organisations committed to the liberation of women. JNPM aims to develop direct involvement of women in struggling against capitalism, patriarchal culture and militarism in Indonesia and argues there can be no separation between the generalised struggle of Indonesia’s majority poor population and the struggle for women’s liberation. On August 22 Direct Action interviewed JNPM national coordinator Vivi Widyawati, who will be in Australia in September and October speaking at public meetings organised by Direct Action. Widyawati is also an activist in the Committee for the Politics of the Poor-People’s Democratic Party (KPRM-PRD), a socialist party formed two years ago by expelled members of the leftist PRD.

What are the main campaigns JNPM has focused on since it was founded?

Since its foundation there have been many actions undertaken by JNPM such as organising rallies every March 8 for International Women’s Day, developing a program of feminist education, and publishing the fortnightly bulletin Mahardhika. We campaign very broadly on the need to build a nationwide, independent women’s organisation. We also strive for unity between the women’s movement and the broader struggles of the poor majority. We also respond to government decisions or political attacks on women as they arise.

Currently, our main program is aimed at developing women’s committees at the grassroots level in each sector. We run educational programs around the basic rights of women, the political movement, feminism, democracy and about how to organise. Secondly, we distribute as much feminist reading material as possible including distributing Mahardhika. JNPM is also actively involved in building an alliance of all democratic and leftist organisations in Indonesia and of course this includes women’s organisations. We are also currently running a feminist school across three universities in Yogyakarta.

What is the history of JNPM as an organisation?

We began as women activists involved in various pro-democracy organisations who met at a national conference in 2003. The conference involved 98 participants from eight provinces in Java, Bali, Sumatra and Kalimantan. This was a spirited one-day conference in which we discussed issues related to the liberation of women. We identified three key factors holding women back — the capitalist system, patriarchal culture and militarism. Secondly, we identified the importance of direct participation of women in the struggle for their own liberation and, thirdly, we decided to build a mass women’s organisation on a national scale.

In March 2006 we reconvened in a second national conference in Jakarta which also included representatives from Papua, East Java and East Nusa Tenggara and we were able to consolidate the national structure. In 2007 there was a split in the organisation. This originated from JNPM and some of its branches’ involvement in the National Liberation Party of Struggle (Papernas). This party, which was initiated by members of the PRD, attempted to register for the 2009 parliamentary elections in order to present an anti-capitalist program. The undemocratic electoral laws made it extremely difficult for Papernas to gain electoral registration. In addition, its members were physically attacked by right-wing militia organisations such as the Islamic Liberation Front and the Indonesian Anti-Communist Front.

That situation spawned two counterpoised trends about how to move forward. One prioritised the tactic of trying to gain electoral registration by merging with the Star Reform Party (PBR) or another pro-capitalist party. The second rejected subordination to any capitalist party, preferring to continue advancing an independent program. This was the position of the majority of JNPM members. We preferred to break our involvement with Papernas if this involvement meant merging with the PBR because from its inception the PBR has been a party opposed to a democratic program for women. Moreover, the politics of the leadership of Papernas, who entered into the PBR, had already become the opposite of the original ideas of the party.

The split in Papernas also affected all of its founding organizations. However, for JNPM the split did not result in the formation of two competing groups because those in JNPM who supported political cooption by the PBR were only a small minority and they have not attempted to build a new women’s organisation. They became busy as candidates for the PBR.

How possible is it for a serious women’s liberation movement to develop in the objective conditions in Indonesia today?

The objective potential for the development of the women’s liberation movement in Indonesia is enormous. It can be said that the conditions the majority of women endure are well short of what is reasonable. Domestic violence is rising. Sexual harassment in the workplace is rife. Unsafe abortions kill many women — a 2008 study found that of 2.5 million abortions performed in Indonesia each year, 70% are carried out in conditions that can potentially cause death.

The reason why the women’s movement is still small today is because consciousness about the need to organise is still weak — the result of over 30 years of repression during General Suharto’s New Order regime. Since democratic space has opened up after the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998, the development of women’s organisations has been slower than other sectors. However, I am optimistic that with the development of a poor people’s movement, we can utilise the objective potential that exists to build a strong women’s liberation movement.

Can you comment on the role of the key socialist organisations, including your own grouping, the KPRM-PRD, towards women’s rights and the women’s liberation struggle?

The pro-democracy or leftist organisations do not yet play much of a role in fighting for women’s rights and for women’s liberation. However, some effort has been made from those quarters to strengthen the women’s liberation struggle. The KPRM-PRD is able to bring a socialist-feminist perspective to the women’s movement and the democratic movement as just happened in June and July this year when the KPRM-PRD, together with the Political Union of the Poor (Persatuan Perjuangan Rakyat Miskin, PPRM), organised a series of education classes in 16 cities. These included material on the liberation of women. The KPRM-PRD also helps to organise the grassroots level women’s committees and supports the feminist school in Yogyakarta.

When Suharto’s military dictatorship came to power in 1965, the centrepiece of its anti-communist propaganda campaign was to demonise Communist Party women who were said to have cut off the penises of military generals during the alleged Communist-led coup. Can you comment on the role of women in the overthrow of Suharto and what changes have there been for Indonesian women in the 11 years since?

It’s true that Suharto’s New Order era destroyed the women’s and people’s movement and, more than that, wiped out much of the people’s memory of these movements. The New Order propaganda was savage towards the women’s movement, such as the example you mentioned. According to all historical investigation it is all lies. There was no attack by communist women in 1965 like that propagandised by Suharto.

Many other historical lies were told by the New Order regime to create an anti-woman politics. However, to this day no post-Suharto government has corrected the historical record. The rupture in historical memory is a barrier to the development of the women’s movement today. The women’s movement before Suharto took power was far more advanced organisationally and politically than today’s movement.

Women’s role in the overthrow of Suharto was not insignificant. While it was not channelled through a single organisation, many women were involved in the demonstrations. At the time of rising anti-dictatorship sentiment, during the final moments of the regime, resistance among women rose to the surface and gave a strong shot to the popular movement as it became more audacious in its overthrow of the regime. For example the organisation Voice of Caring Mothers (Suara Ibu Peduli, SIP) organised an action for the supply of cheap milk during which the leadership was arrested. This protest action gave massive inspiration to the popular movements, including women, to consolidate their struggle to overthrow Suharto.

Today, after 11 years of the reformasi era, there have been some advances for women. The opening of democratic space has provided a massive opportunity for distribution of feminist literature, for the development of women’s NGOs and for the beginning of a discussion about women’s issues in the public sphere. While the women’s movement is not large, Indonesia has already passed some laws for the protection of women such as those addressing domestic violence, trafficking and the establishment of a 30% quota for women representatives in parliament. In practice, many of these laws are not applied. But in our view they still represent a step forward for Indonesian democracy.

However we think it is not enough. The section of the political elite that identify themselves as “reformist” in reality do not consistently advance a program of progressive reform and have not concluded legal cases concerning human rights abuses carried out in the Suharto era. The elite reformists and elite political parties have no interest in advancing a program for the liberation of women.

The legal umbrella for the protection of women is “merely decoration”, but has never been implemented. On the other hand, the reformasi era has also brought about a multitude of laws that protect foreign capital and impoverish the people such as the oil and gas law, banking law, water privatisation law and the food law. These are buttressed by regional laws that directly impoverish women. Under reformasi there has still been no significant change for women.

Since the fall of Suharto there has been a massive increase in the number of NGOs operating in Indonesia and a lot of foreign money goes into them. Can you comment on the sorts of women’s rights issues the NGOs address and how effective they are?

Women’s NGOs raise a great many issues, both in a coordinated way and as individual groups. NGOs are still the form of organisation that most often gives voice to women’s interests. They most commonly advocate changes to government policy. This framework is effective in helping to raise basic feminist ideas in society. However, it is unable to push for maximum activity of women themselves. It has become clear that the most effective method of gaining women’s participation is by building a women’s movement that is supported by a unified organisation and method of mobilisation. But this approach is generally ignored by the NGOs, so it has been hard to get NGO support for a national conference to organise a unified women’s movement despite what we have done in this regard with minimal funding.

At the time of the 2009 elections, the NGOs generally focused on the issue of fulfilling the 30% quota for women in parliament without looking at the politics of the parties these women were using to enter parliament. JNPM also supports the quota as an affirmative-action measure, but the number of women in parliament does not guarantee policy expanding the rights of women if these women MPs are members of parties that do not have programs for the liberation of women. For example, in the New Order era the number of women MPs was greater than the number after 1998, but women suffered attacks and discrimination under Suharto’s rule.

What sort of international support and collaboration does JNPM have?

In terms of developing the women’s movement in Indonesia or in other Third World nations, there is always a need for support from women’s organisations internationally, primarily by increasing solidarity for struggles being carried out by the women’s movement. In a situation of limited democracy, the feminist movement in Indonesia needs international support, particularly when repression is levelled against us — messages of protest against the illegal detention of feminist activists or against right-wing militia attacks. Also, I am happy to have been invited to Australia to discuss these issues. As a representative of JNPM I will take every opportunity to develop relationships with feminist and democratic organisations in Australia. Perhaps we will be able to find concrete ways to carry out mutual solidarity between the feminist organisations.

US anti-abortionists' terror campaign claims another life

2009-07-07T15:13:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

From Direct Action
One of the few remaining US clinics that provided late-term abortions will close in the wake of its owner’s murder, the slain doctor’s family said on June 9. Dr George Tiller was shot dead in his church in Wichita, Kansas, on May 31. His clinic, Women’s Health Care Services, was one of only three remaining clinics in the US to provide abortion services in the third trimester. This made him and the clinic a long-standing target of the anti-abortion movement. The clinic had been picketed since 1975 and was bombed in 1986. In 1993, Tiller was shot in both arms.

Since 1993, there have been nine murders of abortion providers and clinic staff in the US. These are not isolated incidents — it is a deliberate tactic of the anti-abortion movement in their campaign to prevent women accessing abortion. It is not only the fundamentalist religious anti-abortionists who fuel these attacks. For example, right-wing Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly has run a campaign against Dr Tiller, decrying him at least 29 times since 1995 as “Tiller the baby-killer”, “Nazi”, the moral equivalent of Al Qaeda and so on.

On June 1, long-time leader of the anti-abortion movement Frank Shaeffer, whose father was also a founder of the anti-abortion movement in the US, wrote in an op-ed piece in the June 2 Baltimore Sun: “The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as ‘murderers’. And today, once again, the ‘pro-life’ leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I’d like to say that I, and the people I worked with in the pro-life movement, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.”

This hate campaign has worked. Since 1982, there has been a steady decrease across the US in the number of clinics providing abortion. This followed a sharp rise in abortion providers after the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling which overrode state laws limiting women’s access to abortion in the first trimester. According to the US National Abortion Federation, today 88% of all US counties have no identifiable abortion provider. In non-metropolitan areas, the figure rises to 97%.

The terror tactics against abortion providers go hand-in-hand with the anti-abortion movement’s political campaign for laws that ban abortion. Between 1995 and 2008 more than 550 laws limiting women’s reproductive freedom were enacted across the US, including the misnamed “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act” of 2003, which outlaws the use of the “intact dilation and extraction” procedure used in some abortions past the first trimester. The anti-abortionists resort to the tactic of physical violence when their political campaign is seen to be losing ground. It is no coincidence that the murder of Dr Tiller came on the back of much anti-abortion hand-wringing about the election of Barack Obama, lauded by the leadership of the US pro-choice movement as being the country’s second “pro-choice” president.

The conservative wing of the pro-choice movement, represented by groups such as the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), has continued to put its weight behind Obama and the Democrats — a strategy that has led to the continued loss of ground to the anti-abortionists. The politics of the movement are defensive, shaped by what the first ostensibly “pro-choice” US president, Bill Clinton, called for in 1992 — “abortion should be safe, legal and rare”. This outlook was reflected in the May 17 speech by Obama at the Notre Dame University, which attracted much controversy because of the anti-abortion movement’s protest at the Catholic university’s awarding of an honorary doctorate to Obama.

In his speech, Obama legitimised the anti-abortion movement, stating: “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions. So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies”. He went on to argue for the need to “honour the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women”.

Support for such a stance has left the conservative wing of the US pro-choice movement unable to make the case that abortion is not a social problem, but the solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancy. NARAL has even moved away from openly defending a woman’s right to control her own body — now hinging its campaigns around the idea of abortion as an issue of “privacy” for women! This plays into the hands of the anti-abortionists, who strive to create a “taboo” about speaking about abortion, thus keeping women isolated in their experiences of having or seeking abortion.

The failure of NARAL to challenge the anti-abortionists’ ideas is reflected in the US Gallup poll conducted in May this year which found that 51% of adults described themselves as “pro-life” — up seven points in a year. The poll found that 53% believe abortion should be legal only under limited circumstances. Only 22% supported abortion in all circumstances. As long as the US abortion rights movement continues to look to the Democrats for political leadership, more ground will be lost to the anti-abortionists.

Campaign launched for repeal of anti-abortion laws

2009-06-24T16:00:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

from Direct Action

A protest campaign has been launched in Brisbane against the charges bought against a young couple in Cairns under the anti-abortion provisions in the Queensland Criminal Code. The campaign was launched on May 9 when 80 people protested against an anti-abortion demonstration, blocking the anti-abortionists’ way to the state parliament building. The campaign, organised by the Pro-Choice Action Collective, is demanding an immediate dropping of the charges and the repeal of all anti-abortion laws.

A young Cairns woman was charged in April under section 225 of the Criminal Code, which criminalises “unlawful” abortion. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to seven years. Her partner was charged under section 226, which criminalises anyone who assists an unlawful abortion. This charge carries a prison sentence of up to three years. It is at least 50 years since anyone was prosecuted under these laws. In 1986, charges were bought against two doctors under section 224, which criminalises anyone carrying out an unlawful abortion. This “crime” carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Gains won by feminist movement

The court in this historic case found the doctors not guilty. As in similar cases in Victoria and NSW in the 1980s, this ruling liberalised the interpretation of the law, providing a legal precedent for “lawful” abortion. This partial victory was in large part a result of the pressure of the women’s liberation movement — the repeal of anti-abortion laws was a central demand of this movement during its upsurge in the 1970s and 80s. The movement had already played a role in staying the hand of Queensland government against enforcing the anti-abortion laws. For example, the Greenslopes Fertility Control Clinic, in southeast Brisbane, which was set up by Doctor Bayliss (one of the doctors charged in 1986), has operated openly since 1976. Similar situations existed in other states.

However, all of these clinics operated under extreme political pressure. In May 1985, for example, the Queensland government ordered a raid on the Greenslopes clinic, with the police interrogating women in the clinic and taking and copying 20,000 patient files. This raid was found to be illegal by the Supreme Court after which Director of Public Prosecutions Des Sturgess made a public appeal for women to come forward with any complaints against the clinic. A complaint was made, leading to charges being bought against the clinic’s two doctors. The ruling on their case has allowed for limited access to legal abortion, though the ruling was explicit in not recognising “abortion on demand”. Rather, it found that abortion was legal only if a woman’s life was at risk from continuing the pregnancy. Actual practice is already far more liberal than this. For example, in Queensland in 2008 there were 11,000 abortions.

Many women are not even aware that abortion is still a criminal offence. According to media reports, this was the case for the Cairns couple who have been charged under the laws. This lack of awareness is in large part due to the decline of the women’s liberation movement and the resulting decline in the sort of widespread education campaigns that took place during the upsurge of the movement two decades ago. It was these campaigns and the street protests that were a hallmark of this movement that won overwhelming public support for a woman’s right to abortion. The 2003 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, conducted by the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research, found that more than 80% of respondents supported a woman’s right to choose abortion.

These gains are constantly under threat — and not only from the religiously motivated anti-abortion groups. These groups are nothing but the shock troops for the anti-woman agenda of capitalism — a system that profits from the oppression of women. The capitalist system relies on the unpaid domestic work done by women. This requires imprisoning women within the family institution. The family unit is the basic economic unit of consumption and reproduction of the labour force for the capitalist class. It is defended with the idea that every woman’s primary role in capitalist society is as a mother and carer. The idea that every woman should have a right to abort a pregnancy, and thus be liberated from being prisoners of their reproductive organs, runs counter to this ideological straightjacket.

The Labor Party, just like the Liberals, support capitalism and the family unit as the best “welfare” system within the capitalist system. This is why it is a dead-end strategy to rely lobbying the “centre-left” ALP to advance women’s rights. But this has been the political course of a significant number of women’s liberationists over the last two decades. It is a strategy that has led to the demobilisation of the movement for women’s liberation. But while it is a dead-end for the majority of women, this strategy has certainly paid off for many “sisters in suits” enabling them to pursue comfortable career paths in the ALP. Current Queensland Labor Premier Anna Bligh, a former feminist campaigner, is only the most high-profile of these “sisters in suits”.

Reform v repeal

For decades the ALP and its feminist supporters have held back the struggle for complete decriminalisation of abortion in Queensland through assurances that the anti-abortion laws were a dead letter. Unsurprisingly, the Cairns charges have been met by deafening silence by the very same ALP politicians who made these assurances for years. Now the pro-Labor feminists are falling short of demanding the immediate repeal of the laws, calling instead for the Bligh government to refer the laws to the Law Reform Commission. This demand is of significance because it implies that the reform of the existing laws is sufficient. It isn’t. Supporters of women’s right to abortion should demand nothing less that the complete repeal of all anti-abortion laws. Abortion is a basic medical procedure and it should be treated as such in law. This is what women’s liberationists have argued for decades and there is no room for compromise on it.

Furthermore, the legislative “reform process” does not always go in favour of women’s rights. For example, there were changes to the abortion laws in Western Australia in 1999, ostensibly initiated in favour of abortion rights by then ALP MP Cheryl Davenport. While clarifying the law, these changes actually increased restrictions on abortion.

Abortion was decriminalised in the ACT in 2002 and in Victoria in 2008, though in both jurisdictions there are still legal restrictions placed upon a women’s right to have the procedure. In Victoria, a woman requires the approval of two doctors to have an abortion after 24 weeks of gestation. Thus, even where the anti-abortion laws have been repealed, the struggle to have it made a woman’s right to choose is far from over. The costs of abortion still restrict access for many working-class women. There are also the moral restrictions — the social “guilt-trip” that women are subjected to face if they choose abortion.

The strategy of law reform shifts the focus of the movement for women’s liberation into back-room wheeling and dealing between capitalist politicians and abortion rights lobbyists. It allows for compromises to be made by such lobbyists on behalf of the vast majority of women — compromises that they have no right or authority to make. It is only through the mass women’s liberation movement that limited access to abortion was won and it is only through mobilising the widespread public support for women’s right to abortion through public rallies and marches that these partial gains can be defended and extended.

The charges bought against the young couple in Cairns highlights the urgency of rebuilding such a movement. This cannot be seen as an isolated case. Already these charges represent a victory for the anti-abortion campaigners by creating the “scare” that the anti-abortion laws can and will be used. If the charges are upheld it will mark the most serious setback for abortion access in decades. There is no room for complacency. There are significant forces that will use the opening provided by the Cairns case to seek a complete ban on abortion. They want to see the clock turned back to the days of backyard abortions when medically unsafe terminations were the second highest cause of maternal death in Australia. The charges against the Cairns couple must be dropped.

[The next Brisbane abortion rights rally will be held at 5pm on June 10 in Brisbane Square (top of Queen Street mall). For more information about the campaign and further protest actions, phone Kathy on 0400 720 757 or email prochoiceaction@gmail.com.]

Drop the abortion charges! Repeal all anti-abortion laws!

2009-05-11T08:41:00.006+10:00

By Kathy Newnam
from Direct Action

On April 16, a young couple faced court in Cairns on charges brought against them under the anti-abortion provisions in the Queensland Criminal Code (sections 224, 225 and 226). A 19-year-old woman faces seven years imprisonment for allegedly using an abortion drug from overseas to terminate a pregnancy while her 21-year-old male partner faces three years imprisonment for allegedly providing her with the abortion drug. It is the first time in at least 50 years that a woman has been charged in Australia for having an abortion. The case will be heard next month.

The strength of the women’s liberation movement led to the liberal interpretation of the anti-abortion laws in a 1986 court ruling in Queensland — which allowed for “lawful” abortion if a woman’s life is at risk by continuing a pregnancy. It is under this interpretation of the law that abortion is legally accessible in Queensland. This ruling was also very clear in not granting “abortion on demand” to women wishing to terminate their pregnancy. The laws that criminalise abortion have remained an ever present threat to abortion rights — a threat that has now been realised. Abortion was decriminalised in the ACT in 2002 and Victoria in 2008, but the Queensland government has maintained that it will not follow suit. In response to the charges against the Cairns couple, Attorney General Cameron Dick told the media on April 22 that “the Bligh government currently has no intention to change the legislation in this area”.

Still a crime

For decades, Labor politicians and their allies in the women’s liberation movement have argued that it is better not to “rock the boat” by demanding the removal of abortion from the criminal code, as this might lead to the overturning of the limited access to abortion granted by court rulings. They have repeatedly claimed that abortion has, for all intents and purposes, been “decriminalised”. The charging of the Cairns couple has well and truly “rocked the boat” and the complicity of Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s Labor government in their charging has exposed the utter falsity of the idea that there is no need to remove abortion from the criminal code. While these charges represent the most serious attack on access to abortion for many decades, the fact is that the laws against “illegal” pregnancy termination are continually used as a weapon to limit access to abortion.

Currently, South Australia is the only state where women can access free bulk-billed abortion. In other states, the cost of abortion has risen sharply over recent years. In Queensland, the cost of an abortion ranges from around $260 up-front (for concession holders in Brisbane) to $810 in Cairns for abortions under 12 weeks of pregnancy. The costs for abortion rise steeply every two weeks after 12 weeks of gestation. Only $260 is available on the Medicare rebate — around $100 less than comparable operations.

The anti-abortion laws help promote the false idea that abortion is “murder” — a thoroughly unscientific idea based on the theological belief that a fetus is a person. This idea is used to create a social stigma around abortion in order to make women feel ashamed about having an abortion, putting moral pressure on those who do to “keep it to themselves”. Abortion is treated as a highly personal issue — despite the fact that it is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures in the country and one third of women will have an abortion at some time in their lives.

The social stigma surrounding abortion creates a barrier to the realisation that the restrictions on abortion are highly political, aimed at restricting the ability of women to control their own bodies. The capitalist rulers promote the idea that women’s primary social role is to be mothers and carers. This is absolutely critical for upholding the profit system — as the costs of rearing the next generation of workers and caring for elderly and sick workers are placed on individual family units, rather than on the capitalist ruling class. In Australia, this unpaid housework has been estimated to be equivalent to more than 50% of GDP, making it absolutely essential for the maintenance of the capitalist profit system. As then PM John Howard stated in June 1999: “The stable functioning family still represents the best social welfare system that any community has devised and certainly the least expensive.”

Despite the social stigma that the capitalist rulers have sought to attach to abortion, large numbers of women have used abortion as a means of terminating unwanted pregancies. In 1942, for example, even though abortion was illegal throughout Australia, one in four pregnancies were aborted. Abortion rights advocates should not give an inch to the idea that abortion is a “social problem”. It is not. It is a simple medical procedure and it should be treated as such — legally, politically and medically.

Public support for abortion rights

Legal, financial and moral restrictions on abortion are pursued by the anti-abortion lobby as public support for the right of women to abort unwanted pregnancies prevents them from achieving their goal of banning the procedure. According to the most recent survey of public opinion on abortion, over 60% of Queenslanders believe that abortion should be legal, and 85% of Queenslanders believe that abortion is a matter between a woman and her doctor. While this is a significant and lasting gain of the women’s liberation movement, it is consistently under threat by the ideological campaigns of the anti-abortion lobby.

One such example in Australia is the establishment of the anti-abortion organisation Women’s Forum in 2005 by Melinda Tankard-Reist, an adviser to anti-abortion senator Brian Harradine until he retired in 2005. Tankard-Reist has strong ties with the right-wing anti-abortion lobby and regularly features in Right to Life publications and conferences. However, unlike the latter, Women’s Forum presents itself as a “feminist” group. It seeks to appeal to feminist-minded young women with campaigns against sexist media imagery. This anti-abortionist “Trojan horse” tactic is a real threat to the mobilisation of public support in defence of abortion rights, especially as there are now entire generations who did not live through the period of illegal backyard abortions and its devastating consequences for women. In 1971, unsafe abortions were ranked as the second main causes of maternal death in Australia. This situation continues in many part of the world today — the World Health Organization estimates that unsafe abortions cost the lives of at least 68,000 women every year.

The decline of the organised women’s liberation movement from its peak in the 1970s and ‘80s has meant that there has been no widespread education about the history of abortion access. But it is a contradictory situation, as many young people simply take access to legal abortion for granted, often not even realising that there are legal restrictions in place.

Need for campaign of public protest action

It is for these reasons that there will be widespread support for the dropping of the charges against the Cairns couple. If this support is mobilised on the streets it could not only force the government to intervene to have the charges dropped, but could also mark a turning point in the struggle for the complete decriminalization of abortion. On May 9, there will be a rally in Brisbane that will launch the struggle to build such a campaign. The rally, organised by the Pro-Choice Action Collective will take place outside Parliament House to coincide with the annual anti-abortion march which takes place in Brisbane on the eve of Mother’s Day. There is further protest action being planned in the lead up to June 11 when the Cairns couple face court again.

It is only through such public street action that the campaign will be able to break through the misinformation of the media, government and anti-abortion lobby and mobilise the support that will be needed to win. Letter writing campaigns and lobbying Labor politicians are not enough. Furthermore, the illusion that such a campaign has a greater chance of success because the Queensland premier is a woman will only disorient and distract the campaign. For decades, the ALP-dominated sections of the abortion rights movement have accepted the false promises and excuse-making of the Labor Party — the dangers of which, long argued by socialists and other radicals in the movement, are now being realised with the charging of the Cairns couple.

[Kathy Newnam has been involved in campaigns for women’s rights for over a decade and is currently active in the Pro-Choice Action Collective in Brisbane. She is a member of the national executive of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.]

Paid parental leave in doubt - again

2009-05-09T17:25:00.000+10:00

By Dani Barley

from Direct Action

“It’s time to bite the bullet on paid maternity leave” after “12 years of neglect”, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stated in September. But the Rudd Labor government is now trying to renege on a national parental leave scheme in the forthcoming federal budget — citing the global financial crisis as the prime excuse.

Finance minister Lindsay Tanner was back-pedalling furiously on April 9, telling the Australian Associated Press that there were “a lot of tough priority choices … The global financial crisis has knocked a huge hole in our revenue. We are committed to introducing paid maternity leave, the question of timing are [sic] matters still yet to be determined.” Workplace relations minister and deputy PM Julia Gillard told ABC TV’s 7:30 Report on April 29: “We’ve had huge downgrades in the amount of revenue available to the government. That means that when we’re working on this budget, we are taking a line-by-line, conservative, prudent approach.”

The Productivity Commission’s draft report, Paid Parental Leave: Support for Parents with Newborn Children, recommended that 18 weeks of maternity leave be paid to all working mothers at the adult minimum wage of $544 per week, which would be counted as taxable income. Women who had worked an average of at least 10 hours per week for the previous 12 months would be eligible, extending eligibility to casuals, contract workers and the self-employed. An estimated 140,000 women would be eligible each year. Fathers or same sex partners would be eligible for two weeks of leave. Those who did not qualify for the scheme would still be eligible for the tax-free $5000 baby bonus (formerly known at the maternity payment).

Affordable

Productivity commissioner Robert Fitzgerald told the April 9 Australian that there was “no question” of the feasibility of providing 18 weeks’ leave, despite the souring national economy. “The commission is acutely aware of the difficulties for government and business. We certainly put a scheme to the government we think is implementable. The proposals we put couldn’t possibly harm business too much.” The estimated cost to taxpayers is $450 million per year, with a further $75 million from business in superannuation payments and administrative costs.

Fitzgerald continued: “Our view is that the investment … would pay dividends. If you can support parents being home with a child for at least the first six months, there are benefits to the children and the parents. It allows a mother to breastfeed her child. It allows greater bonding between the parents and the child in a more stable environment.”

The AAP reported that an Auspoll survey of more than 1700 Australians found that 67% supported taxpayer-funded maternity leave. Eighty per cent preferred government-funded parental leave over tax breaks for high income earners in the federal budget. The Greens intend to introduce a bill proposing just that: six months’ leave paid at the adult minimum wage, to be funded by scrapping the high income tax cut scheduled to take effect from July 1. Australia and the United States are the only developed capitalist countries without a national parental leave scheme, though there are some individual US states offering paid leave. For other developed capitalist countries, the average is 14 weeks of paid leave.

ACTU vacillates

The ACTU has vacillated on its position of favouring the immediate introduction of 14 weeks’ paid maternity leave. ACTU president Sharan Burrow told ABC Radio on March 2: “There’s only one real question for the government: can they afford to put it in this budget as a whole?” She added: “If indeed you can’t afford it in one hit, then talk to Australian women; if it needs to be phased in over a couple of years, well that’s a discussion that can be had.” Burrow told the April 29 7:30 Report: “I’m absolutely certain it will be in the budget, and women across the country will be breaking open the champagne, notwithstanding the economic circumstances”. The question remains: will the champers be poured for another short-sold promise, perhaps like the one from the Rudd government to “tear up” Work Choices?

In the same program, reporter Heather Ewart outlined maternity leave systems offered by private companies, specifically Woolworths. Under its scheme, which includes Woolworths and Safeway supermarkets, Dick Smith Electronics and Big W, employees who have worked with the retail giant for at least two years on a permanent basis are entitled to up to eight weeks’ leave (an initial six weeks with two “bonus” weeks upon return to work) with full pay and up to two years without pay. Covering some 85,000 women nationally, this is the largest private maternity leave system in the country.

Gillard explained to Ewart the government’s desire to “make sure paid maternity leave works so that private firms that have already stepped up to the plate to offer paid maternity leave continue to do so … [and] other firms will step up to the plate and offer it as a workplace benefit”. Ewart aptly responded, “In other words, the government appears to be saying it’s no longer the time to bite the bullet on this, and it wants to see the private sector do its work for it instead”.

This is not the first time a federal government has backed away from a paid maternity leave scheme. When then PM John Howard introduced the “maternity payment” (later known as the “baby bonus”) on October 5, 2003, he argued that this one-off payment was superior to paid leave because it was “not restricted to working women”. Costing more than $700 million in its first year alone (when the payment was only $3000), the non-means-tested payment was of greater benefit to those who already had one parent remaining at home. Furthermore, it did nothing to protect a woman’s right to continuous employment.

On April 1, the AAP cited an AMP Financial Services report showing that a 25-year-old man’s potential earnings over the next 40 years are $2.4 million, compared with $1.5 million for a similarly aged woman. A man with children who holds a bachelor degree or higher will earn around $3.3 million, compared with $1.8 million for a woman with children.

Some 70% of part-time workers in Australia are women. Those who don’t qualify for the current unpaid maternity leave must resign their positions and start from scratch when they re-enter the work force. In those years, they lose the opportunity for promotion, training and financial security. Couple this with the extremely high cost and low availability of safe and appropriate child care and you’re talking about a heavy burden being borne by (mostly) women. Paid maternity leave would not force women to return to full-time work, but would allow them the flexibility to choose what is best for them and their children, a basic right that should be available to anyone, not just those with financial means.

Photos: rally for abortion rights in Brisbane. May 9 09.

2009-05-08T22:15:00.000+10:00

May 9, 09. Rally for abortion rights in Brisbane.

Photos by Owain Jones

The anti-abortion movement's 'feminist' fakers

2008-10-08T09:27:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

from Direct Action

Over 80% of people in Australia support a woman’s right to choose abortion — a significant gain of the women’s liberation movement. Having lost the debate on a woman’s right to choose, the anti-abortion movement has adopted a new tactic — posing as being “pro-woman”. At the forefront of this maneuver in Australia is Women’s Forum Australia. The WFA was formed following a meeting in December 2004 at the Sheraton on the Park hotel in Sydney that was called to discuss the next steps in the campaign to ban abortion.

There is nothing new in the intent or the methods of the WFA — spreading lies, pseudo-science and the ever-present guilt trip about abortion. What is new is that it has begun to present itself as being “feminist” and, unfortunately, some women’s rights advocates have been taken in by this deception. At the September 3-5 Brisbane International Feminist Conference, for example, WFA founder, Melinda Tankard-Reist, was included as a speaker in the conference program.

In the 12 years prior to establishing the WFA, Tankard-Reist had worked as an adviser to anti-abortion, Christian fundamentalist Senator Brian Harradine. She has strong ties with the far-right anti-abortion lobby and regularly features in Right to Life publications and conferences. Her inclusion as a speaker at a feminist conference is met with significant dissension from conference participants.

Tankard-Reist spoke on “The sexualisation and objectification of girls in popular culture”. This has been a key WFA campaign, providing it with a front for its real agenda. Unable to find much support among feminists for its earlier slogan of “pro-woman, pro-life”, the WFA has shifted to an insidious “Trojan horse” tactic — seeking to win legitimacy on other issues so it is then able to present itself as part of the feminist movement.

It is not only through deception that the WFA has attempted to weasel its way into the feminist movement. There are some long-time feminists who have been thoroughly conservatised in recent years and are now willing to give “feminist” credentials to anti-feminist groups like the WFA.

At the Brisbane conference, the inclusion of the WFA was ardently defended by Renate Klein, a member of the Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering (FINRRAGE) and a founder of the feminist publishing company Spinifex Press, which in 2007 published a book written by Tankard-Reist. FINRRAGE also recently campaigned in alliance with the WFA and other anti-abortion groups under the banner of “Real Reform” during the debate about decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria. “Real Reform” called for compulsory counseling for women seeking abortion.

Compulsory counseling

The type of counseling “Real Reform” is campaigning for has nothing to do with the sort of woman-focused counseling provided by feminist clinics and referral services for decades. Rather, it is about guilt-tripping women in an attempt to “counsel” them out of having an abortion. The website of the Victoria-based anti-abortion group, Salt Shakers, extols the compulsory counseling legislation that existed for a short time in the ACT (which has now entirely decriminalised abortion), which Salt Shakers proudly proclaim “imposed further obstacles to abortion”. This legislation required compulsory viewing of foetal images by women seeking an abortion, a 72-hour “cooling-off” period and mandatory provision of a government-drafted information brochure.

The anti-abortion lobby has been putting significant resources into anti-abortion counseling for years, misrepresenting their “services” under names such as “abortion counseling” or “pregnancy crisis centres”. These “counseling services” lie to women about abortion procedures and their impact.

The “Real Reform” statement cites the supposed “existence of a substantial body of research showing that many women experience significant, negative physical and psychological outcomes after abortion”. Its tactic is aimed at getting a hearing among supporters of abortion rights for the idea of compulsory counseling, under the guise of concern for women’s mental health. But “post-abortion trauma” is yet another lie perpetuated by the anti-abortion lobby. It is based on distortions and pseudo-science.

A report released in August 2008 by the American Psychological Association found that while “it is clear that some women do experience sadness, grief, and feelings of loss following termination of a pregnancy, and some experience clinically significant disorders, including depression and anxiety”, the report stated that there was “no evidence sufficient to support the claim that an observed association between abortion history and mental health was caused by the abortion per se, as opposed to other factors”.

So-called post-abortion trauma is also the theme of Tankard-Reist’s anti-abortion book, Giving Sorrow Words — Women’s Stories of Grief after Abortion (a topic which she also spoke on at the 2000 conference of Right to Life Australia). What is not disclosed in the book is that recruitment for the interviewees for the book was done through anti-abortion networks throughout the country. It would be safe to assume that women who are anti-abortion may have trouble in reconciling their beliefs with having had an abortion. Their “trauma” is in no small part thanks to the incessant theologically based guilt-tripping carried out by anti-abortion lobbyists. The latter’s hypocrisy in then feigning concern for the women who succumb to this guilt-tripping is stunning.

Another theme in the push for compulsory counseling is that women are forced to have abortions by partners or family members. This is yet another deception aimed at getting a hearing for anti-choice views among supporters of women’s rights. The aim of the anti-abortion lobby is not the empowerment of women to make their own choices through non-directive counseling — its aim is to increase its opportunities to pressure women to not have an abortion.

Abortion – without apology

As it cannot find a hearing for their ultimate aim of banning abortion, the anti-abortion lobby’s language is often couched in terms of reducing the abortion rate. This receives widespread support within mainstream politics, and is often not directly challenged even by abortion rights advocates.

While federal health minister in 2006, Tony Abbott referred to the abortion rate as “this generation’s legacy of unutterable shame”. While not opposing abortion outright, current federal health minister Nicola Roxon is on record as saying she wanted “to see our abortion rate reduced”. Similarly, Victorian Premier John Brumby, while supporting the decriminalization of abortion up to 24 weeks pregnancy, has said he doesn’t want to see any increase in the rate of abortions.

Some abortion rights supporters have accepted the false premise of this argument — defensively arguing that changes in the law wouldn’t increase the incidence of abortion. For example, according to a statement printed in Green Left Weekly #757, “Socialist Alliance rejects the argument being peddled by the anti-abortion lobby that [full decriminalisation of abortion] will encourage more women to have terminations because it implies that women don’t take responsibility for the choices they make”.

While it is true that changes in the law haven’t altered the number of women seeking abortions, what if it does? Would that be a bad thing? Abortion rights supporters have fought for many years for increased access to abortion services. Removing the legal, financial and moral barriers to abortion would very likely lead to an increase in the number of abortions and abortion rights supporters should not be apologetic for that.

By being apologetic about the abortion rate, and moreover, by implying that there are circumstances in which abortion is an irresponsible choice, the Socialist Alliance statement buys into the anti-abortion lobby’s argument that abortion is a moral rather than a medical issue. The fact is, abortion is not a social problem — it is a solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies. There are of course other solutions — preventative solutions. But these are not morally superior or inferior to abortion. They are simply different birth-control techniques.

A telling fact about the anti-abortion brigade is that almost all of its members are also opposed to putting resources into such preventative solutions as increased sex education in schools, increased access to contraception and, more generally, the empowerment of women to take control of their own sexuality.

Pro-family shock troops

In a submission to the Senate inquiry into RU486, WFA board member Johanna Lynch asked, “hasn’t the current atheist value-laden sex education proved itself unable to teach about deep lasting responsible relationships that bring real fulfillment and community?” The “solution”, according to the WFA, is to re-enforce the family system — nothing new for the anti-abortion lobby. These people are anti-abortion precisely because keeping women prisoners of their reproductive system strengthens the material basis for their dependence on men, the cornerstone of the family system.

The anti-abortion lobby plays an important role in providing anti-woman shock troops for the capitalist system — which requires women to continue to play their socially dictated role in the family system by doing the unpaid labour that is so essential to the rearing and maintenance of capitalism’s wage-slaves (The word “family” itself comes from the Latin words famulus, which means household slave, and familia, the totality of of slaves belonging to one man).

Moreover, women’s subjugation within the family system plays a crucial socialising role by defining women first and foremost as wives and mothers. This creates the ideological and psychological training for the perpetuation of women’s status as second-class citizens. The legal right to abortion challenges this ideological prison — women are not supposed to want for anything other than motherhood so why would they want to have an abortion?

Leaders of the WFA are also outspoken about other “threats” to the family system. In a submission to a 2003 Senate inquiry into child custody arrangements in the event of family separation, Louise Brosnan, a founder of the WFA, opposed no-fault divorce, writing: “Divorce should not be an easy result to obtain. The lifelong commitments of marriage should be promoted as a good for the married couple and importantly for the children of that union. No fault divorce laws undermine efforts to maintain that unity and stabilisation of society.”

Some conservative groups in the abortion-rights movement, primarily in the US, have adopted the slogan “pro-child, pro-family, pro-choice”. The Socialist Alliance in Australia has also campaigned under this slogan (see cover page, Green Left Weekly #765). This concedes important ideological ground to the anti-abortion lobby by failing to point out that “pro-family” ideology is about justifying a system maintains women’s oppression.

In a 2005 article titled “The insidious censorship of pro-life women”, WFA director Selina Ewing wrote that “censorship must stop so that a fruitful pro-woman debate can take place”. She implied that abortion-rights advocates deny the existence of women who are anti-abortion. But nobody denies this evident fact. There are indeed a small number of women who opposed to abortion rights. Nobody denies them their right to hold their views — but supporters of abortion rights will continue to fight to ensure that they can no longer impose their views, via the law, on the great majority of women. All supporters of abortion rights must fight to expose the real agenda of the WFA and other “feminist” fakers. This has nothing to do with censoring views within the feminist movement because they are not and never will be part of the feminist movement.

[Kathy Newnam has been active in women’s liberation struggles for over a decade and is currently active in the abortion rights campaign in Brisbane. She is a member of the national executive of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.]

Victoria’s abortion law reform

2008-10-08T09:24:00.000+10:00

By Kim Bullimore

from Direct Action

On October 7, the upper house of the Victorian state parliament will vote on the Victorian Abortion Reform Bill, which was passed in the lower house on September 11 by 48 votes to 35. The bill, which was moved on behalf of the state Labor government by women’s affairs minister Maxine Morand, is based on a Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) report recommending the removal of abortion from the Victorian Crimes Act.

Currently under Section 65 of the Victorian Crimes Act (1958), a woman who has an abortion is liable to between five and 10 years imprisonment, while a medical practitioner who provides an abortion can be jailed for up to five years. If passed, the bill would be a significant advance, but falls short of the widely supported “Option C” in the VLRC report — full decriminalisation — by maintaining restrictions on abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Under the government’s proposed legislation, after 24 weeks a woman seeking an abortion must gain the approval of two doctors who have considered “all relevant circumstances”, including “the woman’s current and future physical, psychological and social circumstances” and “reasonably believes that the abortion is appropriate in all the circumstances”. While women would no longer face criminal charges for having abortions, medical practitioners who perform abortions after 24 weeks would still face criminal penalties if it is deemed that they have incorrectly determined the “appropriateness” of the abortion.

During the debate in the lower house, more than 40 amendments were moved, the majority of which sought to either reduce the 24-week upper limit on unrestricted abortions or impose other restrictions. Labor MP Christine Campbell moved several amendments to water down the bill, including an amendment, which was defeated, to make counseling compulsory for all women who seek an abortion and mandating that the “independent” counsellor not be associated with the performance of the abortion or the facility at which the abortion would be conducted. Victorian sports minister James Merlino, who branded the Morand legislation as “extreme”, also moved a number of amendments. He told the September 12 Age that the unamended bill would allow “open slather” on abortion and would encourage women from other states to travel to Victoria to terminate pregnancies. No amendment was moved to remove the 24 week limit.

In a stunt designed to derail the bill, Catholic Archbishop Dennis Hart told the media that the maternity and emergency departments in the 15 Catholic hospitals in Victoria will be closed if the bill passes the upper house. Hart claimed the threat is in protest against the requirement under the bill that doctors who claim conscientious objection to carrying out an abortion be required to refer a woman to a doctor who would carry out an abortion. But this objection has very little to do with the choices of doctors and everything to do with the Catholic Church’s opposition to women choosing abortion.

Campaign strategy

Much of the focus of abortion rights campaigners in the lead up to the debate in parliament was on the lobbying of MPs. This was organised through Pro-Choice Victoria. However, grassroots activists, many of whom have been involved in the monthly protests to defend the historic Fertility Control Clinic against the anti-abortion brigade, organised a demonstration on September 6 in support of full decriminalisation of abortion. The demonstration, which was attended by around 150 people, was organised around the demand for “full abortion rights” at “all stages of pregnancy”. Speakers at the rally also called for “free, accessible abortion on demand”.

In organising for this rally differences emerged in relation to opposing the proposed 24-week limit on unrestricted abortion. Victorian Greens MP Colleen Hartland and Liberty Victoria’s Anne O’Rourke expressed the view to rally organisers that the campaign strategy should be to appeal to MPs to vote for the legislation rather than to mobilise abortion rights supporters for full abortion rights. They opposed the demands of the rally as being “provocative”, favouring instead a rally that did not draw attention to the issue of the 24-week limit or the fact that it would undermine the fundamental right of women to full control of their bodies at all stages of pregnancy.

On September 8, Hartland, O’Rourke and Pro-Choice campaigner Leslie Cannold and others published a letter in The Age that stated: “While women compelled to consider termination at later gestations need our support, the bill is not primarily about them. It is about us: the majority of Victorians of reproductive age who will be governed by this law and the one in three women who will have an abortion in her lifetime.”

This “strategy” of ostensibly supporting a women’s right to choose at all stages of pregnancy but then refusing to defend this right unequivocally or to use language which explicitly supports this fundamental right, opportunistically accommodates to anti-abortionists’ rhetoric aimed at undermining the right of women to control their own bodies by falling into the trap of being defensive about late-term abortions.

Such defensiveness has enabled the anti-abortion lobby in other countries to roll back abortion rights. In the US, for example, this was done with the misnamed Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, signed into law by US President George Bush in 2003. This bans late-term abortions which use the dilation and extraction method, where the fetus is partially removed from the uterus into the birth canal before being aborted. This is the safest option for women requiring abortions after the first trimester.

Late-term abortion is also the target of Tasmanian Senator Guy Barnett who has moved a motion in the Senate to ban Medicare funding for abortions carried out after 14 weeks. On September 16, this motion was referred to the Senate’s finance and public administration committee which will investigate the number and cost of abortions. The committee will report on November 30.

Anti-abortionists have sought to couch their opposition to late-term abortion in rhetoric about “morality” and a woman’s “vulnerability”. However, their opposition to late-term abortions is not based on concern for a woman’s wellbeing. It is based on opposition to the right of women to choose abortion at any stage of pregnancy. They are campaigning to force women to carry through with unwanted pregnancies.

A foetus may have the potential to become a baby, as it does at all stages of pregnancy, but that potential is wholly conditional on the physical welfare of the woman. As long as the foetus is part of a woman’s body, it is her right to choose whether or not to continue with a pregnancy. It’s true that the safety of pregnancy termination declines with increasing pregnancy duration, but late-term abortion is statistically safer than carrying a pregnancy to full term. For years, feminist abortion rights supporters campaigned on the slogan “as early as possible, as late as necessary”. There is absolutely no reason for feminists to compromise or be defensive about this position.

[Kim Bullimore is a long-time women’s liberation activist and a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party. She was the convenor of the Sydney International Women’s Day Collective from 2000 – 2003 and is active in the Victorian pro-choice campaign.]

Forty years of feminism

2008-10-02T08:48:00.001+10:00

By Helen Jarvis

From Direct Action

September 7 marks the 40th anniversary of the event that put on the front pages of the world’s press the feminist movement, or more precisely its “second wave” (following the long lapse since the strong campaigns of the early 20th century for women’s suffrage and emancipation). The newsletter Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement reported at the time that “nearly 150 women committed to women’s liberation from New York, New Jersey, Washington DC, Florida, Boston and Detroit, converged on Atlantic City to protest the degrading image of women perpetuated by the Miss America Pageant.”

The newsletter went on to report: “Our goal was: ‘No more Miss America!’ Our objections to the Pageant: its racism (there’s never been a black contestant); its use of Miss America as a military mascot to entertain the troops abroad and symbolise the unstained, patriotic American womanhood our boys are fighting for; the degrading Mindless-Boob-Girlie symbol which puts women on a pedestal/auction block to compete for male approval; the consumer con-game which makes Miss America a walking commercial and oppresses all women into commodity roles; the cult of youth and the American institution of planned obsolescence which makes last year’s Miss America as stale as yesterday’s news and makes all women ‘useless’.

“Our purpose was not to put down Miss America but to attack the male chauvinism, commercialization of beauty, racism and oppression of women symbolized by the Pageant…. Some of our signs read: ‘Everyone is Beautiful,’ ‘I am a Woman, Not a Toy, Pet or Mascot,’ ‘Who Dares to Judge Beauty,’ and ‘Welcome to the Miss America Cattle Auction’.

“Guerrilla theater was used to illustrate some of our points. A live sheep was crowned ‘Miss America’ and paraded on the liberated area of the boardwalk to parody the way the contestants (all women) are appraised and judged like animals at a county fair.

“‘Women are enslaved by beauty standards’ was the theme of another dramatic action — in which some of us chained ourselves to a life-size Miss America puppet. This was paraded and auctioned off by a woman dressed up as a male Wall Street financier. ‘Step right up, gentlemen, get your late model woman right here — a lovely paper dolly to call your very own property ... She can push your product, push your ego, or push your lawnmower ...’”

I well remember hearing the news reports of this action and seeing the daring images — which were mind-blowing to us young radical student activist women. We had never stopped to theorise about sexual oppression, so caught up were we in the heady days of sexual liberation and political protest against racism and the imperialist war against Vietnam. Not that we didn’t face sexual oppression every day — in fact we had already begun to take direct action against it — demanding access to contraception, and even chaining ourselves to bars to demand that women be allowed to drink in the public bars of hotels (at that time the Ladies’ Lounge was our place).

But to take the next step to start theorising and to form a movement to advance our cause seemed at first to be self-indulgent and distracting from “more important” causes we had to fight. It took some time, and some heated debates, before we in Australia began, during the following year, to set up women’s liberation groups — at first really reading circles. Our first public action was to burst onto the streets of Sydney on December 15, 1969 with a women’s liberation contingent in the demonstration against the Vietnam War with silk screened T-shirts, a banner and a pamphlet headed Only the chains have changed.

Feminist discourse is so taken for granted these days, that it seems hard to imagine that such steps as the Miss America pageant protest or our emerging Australian women’s liberation movement were so controversial. We could not then have imagined the hundreds of groups, books, journals and university courses that are now devoted to the themes we raised. The second wave brought these issues firmly into the centre of politics.

By 1969 the majority of the women’s liberation movement had decided to focus on three key demands: “Equal pay for equal work”; “Free 24-hour child care”; and “Free abortion on demand”. Significant gains were made in these three areas. In addition to the call for equal pay, the women’s liberation movement campaigned for rape crisis centres, women’s refuges, women’s health centres, abortion clinics, childcare centres. The movement fractured somewhat between those who wanted to pressure the government to provide such services and entitlements, and those who decided that the movement itself should create them. As the Whitlam Labor government (1972-75) set up formal women’s departments and commissions, further fractures developed between the “femocrats” and the activists.

But to reflect on today’s reality shows that these key demands are far from being met. After a six-month national “listening tour”, Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, concluded “there is still systematic sex discrimination” against women workers, with women earning an average of 16% less than men”. Opponents of abortion are still mobilising to roll back even the tentative entitlements that were won by struggle during the late 1970s and 1980s in Australia, the US and other countries. Despite the consistent 80% public support in Australia for abortion rights, only the ACT has completely removed abortion from the criminal statute, and only South Australia provides free abortion (bulk-billed) at certain clinics. Child care, while now theoretically widely available at least in major cities, is increasingly expensive and subject to long waiting lists.

But the women’s liberation movement no longer exists as a force fighting to achieve these goals. Like the other social movements emerging from the 1960s it too suffered from the capitalist rulers’ post-1970s neoliberal onslaught aimed at rolling back the social and economic gains made by working people in the decades after World War II. The feminist movement suffered also from the narrow perspective of many its leaders, who saw the avenue for change as seeking to influence the ruling parties and to gain an individual place in the board room and the government bureaucracy. The aspiring “sisters in suits” did not see the need to link women’s struggles with those of other working people, and to develop a strategy for a revolutionary transformation of society.

In response to this decline, the “third wave” of feminism emerged during the 1990s, emphasising a consumerist-oriented “self-liberation”. Its leading lights were often painted by the capitalist media (and themselves) as rejecting the “humourless” (politically-oriented) feminism of the second wave. But looking back at the images and documents from the 1968 protests I am struck by the boldness, irreverence and humour of those women – are today’s feminists so different? In some ways “we’ve come a long way (baby)”, but we have a long way still to go.

[Helen Jarvis was a founding member of the women’s liberation movement in Sydney in 1969 and spent the following five years in New York where she was active in the Women’s Strike Coalition and the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition before returning to Australia. If any reader has or knows where to find a copy of the 1969 pamphlet Only the chains have changed, please contact Direct Action, as it is important to have this saved for the record. Helen Jarvis lent her copy to someone a few years ago and it has never been returned.]

What's behind the anti-abortion AusAID policy?

2008-10-02T08:42:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

from Direct Action

Since 1996 the main Australian government overseas aid organisation, AusAID, has been prevented from funding any organisations that provide “abortion training or services, or research, trials or activities which directly involve abortion drugs” even where it could save the life of a woman. The policy was implemented as part of a deal with independent senator Brian Harradine, but has been kept in place long after he retired from politics in 2005. The policy was reviewed by a cross-party parliamentary committee in early 2007 which called for its repeal — a call ignored by the Howard government and to date also by the Rudd Labor government.

While the policy has been “under review” by the Rudd government, foreign affairs minister Stephen Smith (who has the power to rescind the policy at any time without any legislative process), told ABC TV’s Lateline program on June 5: “I wanted to give my parliamentary colleagues the chance, in an orderly way, without any pressure of time, to consider the issue and in due course, the government will make a decision about whether we confirm the current arrangements or move to a different arrangement.”

While Smith carries on being “orderly”, the lives of thousands of women in poor countries are being threatened each year by lack of access to abortion information and services. According to a World Bank report released on July 10, 68,000 women die each year in underdeveloped countries as a result of unsafe abortions, while another 5.3 million suffer temporary or permanent disability as a result.

The utter viciousness of the AusAID anti-abortion policy is that is allows for funding of counseling services for women who have suffered complications from an unsafe abortion, but disallows advice for women on how to seek safe abortion. Further highlighting the hypocrisy of the policy is its stated aim, which includes supporting the principle that “Individuals should decide freely the number and spacing of their children and have the information and means to exercise this choice”. As long as that choice is not abortion!

The review of the policy has triggered an outcry from the anti-abortion lobby, including from Nationals Senator Ron Boswell and ALP national executive member Joe De Bruyn, national secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). In the June 14 Australian, columnist Angela Shanahan attempted to take the high moral ground in the debate, railing against the call for Australian aid money to be directed toward family planning services and sexual reproductive health under the guise (now a familiar refrain from the anti-abortion lobby) of supporting the rights of women.

Shanahan claimed that opponents of the AusAID anti-abortion policy target “pregnancy as a dangerous condition, to be treated by ‘safe abortion’ rather than targeting the disturbing lack of prenatal care, vaccines, trained midwives, centres equipped for obstetric complications and transportation to those centres”. She deliberately misses the central issue, which is that access to safe abortion services and information is central to women’s health.

Shanahan, a devout Roman Catholic, glibly wrote off the impact of denying such information and services, arguing: “Where women work hard through their pregnancies on poor nutrition, as in Africa, they have the highest rate of miscarriage in the world. In such a climate, abortion is a desperate last resort. It is surprising that the rate of death from septic abortion is not higher than 13 per cent of deaths.”

According to the World Bank, each year there are 76 million unwanted pregnancies in the Third World, resulting either from women not using contraceptives or the contraceptives they use failing. The reasons why women do not use contraceptives most commonly include concerns about possible health and side-effects and the belief that they are not at risk of getting pregnant. That is, a lack of access to information.

Shanahan’s opposition to abortion extends to opposing the call for any increased funding for family planning services. Like all of her misogynist ilk, Shanahan supports keeping women prisoners of their reproductive system.

In her June 14 column, Shanahan attempted to conflate the support for abortion rights with racist population control programs that have been funded by the West in the Third World. She wrote: “To portray [abortion] as a right and a coldly rational decision — of the Western feminists and population planners — is perverse in the extreme. In the past, this sort of logic has been used to support aggressive family planning in China, Africa and Peru, where UN-sponsored programs ran roughshod over culture and religion and were halted only when women died after mass tubal ligations. No wonder they were defunded.” Unable to find a hearing for their anti-choice views, anti-abortionists like Shanahan regularly resort to bald-face lies and misinformation in an attempt to discredit those they oppose.

In fact, it is those who share Shanahan’s anti-choice outlook who are imposing their views upon women in the Third World. The racism inherent in the policy is plain — imposing a ban on funding for abortion services for the non-white women of Third World countries receiving Australian government aid money, while abortion continues to be funded through Medicare in Australia (albeit poorly funded). But the anti-abortion lobby, with all its feigned concern for women’s health, dodges this point because it is the crux of the issue. The anti-abortionists have no concern for women in the Third World — they are fundamentally opposed to women being able to choose abortion (and any other form of birth control).

Attempting to have First World governments impose their anti-abortion bigotry on Third World countries continues the centuries-long practice of white colonialism in fostering and deepening anti-democratic practices and views about women’s role in society. The Christian clergy played an important role in providing justification for this imperial practice, and they continue to. It is little surprise that Mark Green, head of the Catholic charity Caritas, the biggest provider of aid to the South Pacific island-nations, was the only opponent of funding for abortion services quoted by Shanahan.

Sexist and outright misogynist ideas are fostered in order to keep women subjugated to men, often being totally deprived of their most basic human rights. This subjugation is necessary to ensure that women provide unpaid household labour. In developed capitalist countries like Australia, women are also concentrated in the lowest paid sectors of the economy.

On July 22, Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick told reporters that 25 years after the introduction of sex discrimination laws, gender inequality remains rife in Australian workplaces. After a six-month “listening tour” where she spoke to more than 1000 people in metropolitan, regional and remote areas, she had concluded that “there is still systemic sex discrimination” against women workers, with women earning an average of 16% less than men, largely because mothers who work part-time are unable to get better-paid jobs.

Reporting on Broderick’s findings, the July 25 Sydney Daily Telegraph observed: “The ideal employee and the one most likely to be promoted is one who can work longer than normal hours, travel and be available 24/7. And that’s more likely than not to be a man because traditionally they are not seen as having responsibility for caring even if they have kids.”

Throughout the capitalist world, in both rich and poor countries, being a mother is still presented as a woman’s primary social role. The anti-abortionists, particularly the misogynist Roman Catholic Church, seek to deny women any other choice by seeking to have abortion and all other birth control measures banned. Where they can’t have abortion outlawed, they seek to have rich-country government healthcare aid programs to poor countries made conditional on the non-provision of even information about abortion services.

Since 1984, the US imperialist government has spearheaded this with its “global gag rule”, a law that cuts off USAID funding for any organisation that even mentions the word “abortion”. The similarity of the Australian government policy to the US “global gag rule” is another indication that the issue runs far deeper than that “legacy of Haradine”, which is what much of the mainstream commentary on the issue has focused on. The Howard government used the deal with Harradine as a cover for introducing a policy that was thoroughly consistent with its anti-women’s rights agenda. And just as state Labor governments across the country use the tiny anti-abortion lobby as an excuse not to decriminalise abortion, the federal Labor government is now using the anti-abortionists as a cover for its refusal to immediately repeal the AusAID anti-abortion policy.

For free and accessible abortion

2008-10-02T08:38:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam

from Direct Action

With abortion set to be decriminalised in Victoria before the end of the year, there are renewed opportunities for abortion rights supporters to retake ground that has been lost since the height of the abortion rights movement in the 1980s, when it won gains including court decisions in Queensland, Victoria and NSW that liberalised the interpretation of anti-abortion laws, enabling women to legally access abortion. Those rulings reflected the strength of public opinion in favour of abortion access — a product of the long years of campaigning by abortion rights supporters. This support remains strong — more than 80% of people in Australia support a woman’s right to choose.

Currently, abortion remains subject to criminal law in all states and territories except the ACT, which removed abortion from its criminal code in 2002. These laws provide a cover for anti-abortionists to restrict access. As recently as 1998 two Perth doctors were charged with performing an “unlawful abortion” under the Western Australia Criminal Code (in which the term “unlawful” was not defined) for having performed an abortion in 1996 at a Perth clinic. This sparked an intense campaign that led to substantial reform to the WA abortion laws.

WA laws

While this reform led to the repeal of the four sections of the Criminal Code relating to abortion, another section was added, the main restrictions of which related to the WA Health Act, which was also amended to include the definition of a “lawful” abortion. The amended Health Act makes allowance for abortion if a woman will face “serious personal, family or social consequences” or “serious danger to [her] physical or mental health” if the abortion is not performed or if the pregnancy will cause “serious danger to her physical or mental health”. If these conditions are not met, a woman must give “informed consent”. This is a significant restriction because “informed consent” requires two doctors to be involved; the doctor who provides the counselling or refers a woman to counselling cannot be the doctor who provides the abortion.

Another restriction added that after 20 weeks of pregnancy two medical practitioners from a panel of six appointed by the health minister have to agree that the mother or unborn child has a severe medical condition. These abortions can be performed only at a facility approved by the minister. Women under the age of 16 who are still supported by at least one parent have to inform one parent. While it is possible to apply to the Children’s Court to waive this requirement, this would be an extremely daunting prospect on top of the difficulties of accessing an abortion for someone under 16.

Furthermore, the WA Health Act states that no “person, hospital, health institution, other institution or service” is under a duty to provide or participate in performing an abortion.

The outcome of the WA campaign in 1998-99 highlighted the importance of the demand for the complete repeal of all anti-abortion laws. There is no need for specific laws relating to abortion. It is a simple medical procedure and should be treated as such in law and in medicine.

Victoria

The current debate around the moves in Victoria to decriminalise abortion will centre on three models put forward by the Victorian Law Reform Commission. These are:

Model A: a codification of the current legal standing of abortion after the Menhennit ruling of 1969, which found that abortion was “lawful” if continuing the pregnancy would pose a risk to the woman’s mental or physical health.

Model B: Abortion would be a women’s decision up to 24 weeks of gestation, after which it would be lawful only if the woman’s mental or physical health was at risk from continuing the pregnancy.

Model C: complete decriminalisation.

Campaigning for the adoption of Model C offers a major opening for the abortion rights campaign, and not only in Victoria: these changes also raise the need for decriminalisation of abortion in other states and territories. Such a campaign is necessary to fight against any compromises that could be made, as happened in WA.

Attacks on access

Currently South Australia is the only Australian state where women can access free (bulk-billed) abortion, at a Pregnancy Advisory Centre (a free-standing clinic in the public health system, where 85% of abortions in SA are carried out). In other states, the cost of abortion has risen sharply over recent years since Tony Abbott, the Howard government’s health minister, brought about changes to interpretation of Medicare and bulk billing in 2005.

In Queensland, the cost of an abortion ranges from around $260 up front (for concession cardholders in Brisbane) to $810 in Cairns for abortions under 12 weeks. The costs rise steeply every two weeks after 12 weeks gestation. Only $260 is available on the Medicare rebate — around $100 less than for comparable operations. In NSW costs have increased since the closure in 2002 of the Bessie Smyth clinic, the only feminist-run abortion clinic in Australia. The policy of Bessie Smyth — never to turn a woman away — kept pressure on other providers to keep costs low.

On top of the costs for the procedure itself, there are also the associated costs — time off work, childcare and travel expenses, which are particularly an issue for women in regional and rural areas. In Queensland, for example, there are only 13 abortion clinics, and a number of them operate using the same doctors — some regional clinics open only once a fortnight. Queensland clinics provide abortion only up to 15 weeks gestation. Women requiring abortions later than 15 weeks have to travel to Victoria.

The use of Mifepristone (RU486) is still not an option for any but a few women in Australia. Regulation of the “abortion drug” was returned to the Therapeutic Drugs Administration in 2006. Despite this, no pharmaceutical company has applied to import and distribute it, leaving it to individual medical practitioners to jump through the hoops themselves by applying directly to the TGA. Consequently, RU486 is currently available only on a limited basis from one doctor in Cairns.

Currently, medical schools do not carry out compulsory training in abortion procedures. This is despite the fact that it is one of the 10 most commonly performed operations in the country. As well as restricting access, because fewer and fewer doctors are trained in the procedure, it allows the anti-abortion lobby to exploit the lack of direct experience in the medical profession, with misinformation campaigns about the supposed complexity of the operation.

The restriction of abortion access is a tactic pursued by the anti-abortion lobby, as public support for abortion rights prevents the anti-abortionists from achieving their goal of banning the procedure. On June 18 Liberal Senator Guy Barnett moved a motion in the Senate to end Medicare funding for abortions after 14 weeks of gestation, with the claim that abortion for “psychosocial reasons” is “effectively abortion on request”. In other words, the move is based on a fundamental opposition to abortion itself, not just late-term abortion.

Barnett’s motion has not received support from the government (or even from within the Liberal caucus). However, Labor federal health minister Nicola Roxon told reporters in response to the motion that she “would like to see our abortion rate reduced”, reflecting the reactionary view that abortion should be seen as a problem, rather than a solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancy.

[Much of the information for this article is from a public meeting organised by the Pro-Choice Action Collective held in Brisbane on May 31, which was addressed by Marg Kirkby from the Women’s Abortion Action Campaign and Cait Calcutt from Children by Choice.]

Protest against anti-abortion conference, June 2009

2008-07-10T22:31:00.004+10:00

Protest against anti-abortion conference, Brisbane. June 27, 2009. Photos by Owain Jones.

Abortion rights protest, February 2008

2008-07-10T19:31:00.003+10:00

A protest against the anti-abortion rally held by Cherish Life, February 9 2008. A report of the protest can be found at: http://feminismandsocialism.blogspot.com/2008/02/pro-choice-rally-takes-centre-stage.html

Abortion: a medical procedure, not a moral issue

2008-06-24T13:38:00.002+10:00

By Kathy Newnam
From Direct Action

Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, the women’s liberation movement won the public debate about abortion — in Australia today more than 80% of people support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. But the opponents of this right of women haven’t given up. Having lost the debate, the anti-abortion movement now often uses a different approach, attempting to take the mantle of being “pro-woman”.

Central to this approach is the argument that abortion is damaging to women. For example, Roman Catholic Cardinal George Pell wrote in the April 13 Sydney Sunday Telegraph that abortion is “a genuine trauma, an unnatural death, where a mother has often violated her natural instincts as well as her moral sense”. Pell also attempted to paint women as victims of the women’s liberation movement, writing: “In the past, the psychological and spiritual agony experienced by many mothers after abortion was ignored by the media, denied by mental-health professionals and scorned by the women’s movement. Women were told that abortion would bring them relief, but often found only depression and grief whose causes they did not recognise”.

When the likes of Pell write about “post-abortion traumas”, it has nothing to do with medicine or science and everything to do with a “moral” opposition to abortion. Indeed, Pell’s hypocrisy is stunning (although not surprising) — campaigning to stigmatise women who have abortions as “baby killers”, then feigning concern at the psychological health of the same women.

There is a good deal of pseudo-science involved in the mental health impacts of abortion. This reflects the current state of the abortion debate, in which a minority continue to oppose abortion, including in the medical profession. Drawing on a wide range of studies, the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists states in its leaflet for women considering abortion: “Some studies suggest that women who have had an abortion may be more likely to have psychiatric illness or to self-harm than other women who give birth or are of a similar age. However, there is no evidence that these problems are actually caused by the abortion; they are often a continuation of problems a woman has experienced before.”

What opponents of abortion do not address is the mental health risks of forcing a woman to bear an unwanted child. Their argument is not a scientific one in favour of women’s health; it is a moral argument based on theology. In this light, the moral argument is just one more barrier put up in an attempt to prevent women from having control over their own bodies. It is no different from the legal, informational and financial barriers that the women’s liberation movement has fought so hard to remove.

A dangerous fringe

The “pro-life” anti-abortion movement continues to campaign for increased restrictions and bans on abortion. While it is easy to portray this movement and groups like Right to Life as a fringe, if it is not challenged, this movement threatens the gains of the women’s liberation movement as it attempts to whittle away the widespread support for abortion rights.
The anti-abortion shock troops provide justification for attacks on access to abortion. They are presented as having more social weight than they really do through their ongoing mobilisation and the support they receive from within mainstream politics.

They also gain legitimacy from governments that refuse to repeal anti-abortion laws with the justification that it would “rock the boat” and stir up the anti-abortion forces. This is a common excuse given by ALP politicians for the failure to repeal anti-abortion laws by ALP state governments across the country.
The reality is that anti-abortion laws are maintained because the right to choose is a challenge to the ideological rationale for capitalist society. Right to Life find a base for their ideas because they are reinforcing the already existing anti-woman prejudices in society. There is a lot to be lost by conservative forces as women gain control over their own bodies, because it may lead women to demand control over other aspects of our lives.

Women’s right to choose abortion challenges the mythology surrounding women, motherhood and the family. If women can choose not to be mothers, then it undermines the basic premise that underlies sexism in society — that motherhood is the valid role for women. This is the real choice that the conservative forces are afraid of.

The theological, pseudo-scientific and moral opposition to abortion is about trying to force women to be prisoners of their reproductive systems. That situation helps to keep women imprisoned in the straitjacket of the family — in their primary social role as mothers, wives and carers, taking care of the young, the sick and the aged. The attacks on abortion serve the broader neoliberal agenda of saving money for governments and big business by rolling back the idea that such services are social responsibilities. They force the burden onto women through the family.

Clouding the debate

This is why Right to Life receive the backing they do from within mainstream political forces — because they play an important role in clouding the debate. They shift the debate away from defending women’s right to access a simple medical procedure to a supposedly complex issue of morality.

Much of the discussion about the “morality” of abortion starts with the premise that many women feel guilt or shame after having an abortion and that this is due to a conflict over the morality of the decision. That is an assumption that ignores the fact that there is still a strong stigma attached to abortion. Of course many women are going to succumb to the pressures to feel guilty for having an abortion when the whole of mainstream society is telling them that is how they should feel.

In February 2007, then federal health minister Tony Abbott told the media: “Every abortion is a tragedy, and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation’s legacy of unutterable shame.” That kind of bigoted rhetoric has an effect, especially if it isn’t challenged. Unfortunately, not dissimilar sentiments are sometimes expressed by people who are “pro-choice”.

In Britain, there has been a revival of the abortion debate surrounding a private member’s bill to lower the legal abortion limit from 24 to 20 weeks. On May 10 the British Guardian printed an article by Margaret Drabble, from a “pro-choice” perspective. In it she wrote: “The later the abortion, the more tragic the circumstances; that should be blindingly obvious.” Blindingly obvious to who? It may be obvious to those who oppose abortion on “moral” grounds, who, having failed to have abortion banned, campaign to stigmatise women who access it. But supporters of women’s right to access abortion have to reject such arguments. It is high time that the abortion rights movement tackled this moralism head on and aggressively challenged the stigma, shame and guilt surrounding abortion.

Abortion is not a problem; it is a solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies. It is a basic medical procedure and should be treated as such by the medical profession (which still treats abortion as an elective and not a compulsory part of medical training) and by society as a whole. We need free, safe, accessible abortion — without apology. This is the only way to demolish the real “tragedy” surrounding abortion, which is the unnecessary suffering that women have to endure in order to have control over their own bodies and lives.

[Kathy Newnam has been involved in campaigns for women’s rights for over a decade and is currently active in the abortion rights campaign in Brisbane. She is a member of the national executive of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.]

IWD rally and march 2008, Brisbane

2008-05-14T17:43:00.005+10:00

International Women's Day, Brisbane 2008

Pro-choice rally takes centre stage

2008-02-13T12:16:00.000+10:00

By Kathy Newnam
February 13 2008

A lively pro-choice rally of around 100 people was held in Brisbane Square on February 9. The rally was called by the International Women’s Day (IWD) Collective in response to a protest by “QLD Right to Life” against reports in late 2007 that Bonny Barry intends to introduce a private members’ bill to parliament to decriminalise abortion in QLD.

Currently the laws states that women can face up to 7 years imprisonment for having an abortion and abortion providers can face up to 14 years.

The QLD "Right to Life" gathered around the hypocritical slogan of “Respect for Women”. This is an absolute disgrace. This anti-choice brigade do not care about women - it’s an absolute lie. Tens of thousands of women die every year around the world because of unsafe, illegal abortions.

The rally heard from ALP Senator Claire Moore who told the rally that “we know that the law in QLD is appalling and we know it must be changed” stating that “it is offensive that we have to keep begging for our rights” She called on the rally to “ensure that we can work effectively together to ensure that the laws in this state and in fact in all states in Australia are not part of the 18th century”.

Lauren Mellor from the IWD Collective encouraged rally participants to get involved in organising the campaign stating that there “needs to be a groundswell” in order to keep the pressure on Bonny Barry and the Labor Party. “We can’t let the small minority of ‘right to lifers’ take up that space. We know that our position is the position supported by the majority of the community”.

The rally marched to the “Right to Life” demonstration, one block away in Queen’s Park. The anti-choice rally had attracted only around 300 people (including those who had been bussed in from Toowoomba) despite having months to build it and backing from various church groups.

The pro-choicers took to the stage that had been set up for the anti-choice rally chanting “pro-life, your name’s a lie, you don’t care if women die” and “respect for women, respect for choice” in response to their hypocritical rally slogan.

IWD Collective member Amy Thomas explained that the “Right-to-Life lobby, despite mass unpopularity, and despite a history of violence towards abortion providers and consistent abuse of women entering abortion clinics, continues to garner an audience with right-wing politicians who are happy to promote their dangerous and very-often sexist agenda. The occupation of the stage on Saturday was a symbolic gesture - to show the Right-to-Lifers what it feels like to have your choice taken away”.

The pro-choicers left the stage voluntarily but continued to voice their protest alongside the rally and distributed pro-choice information to passers by.

The action which was called at short notice showed the support that exists for the campaign and has re-invigorated the IWD Collective. The IWD rally on March 8, which will again demand free, safe, accessible abortion on demand – without apology, is an important opportunity to mobilise this support. We cannot let the anti-choice minority set the agenda - its time to take to the streets - 80% of people in this country support the right to choose and we have to show that majority out on the streets.

[The International Women’s Day Collective is meeting weekly on Mondays, 6pm at the QCU Building, 2nd floor, 61 Peel St, South Brisbane. For more information phone 0400 720 757, email iwdbrisbane@gmail.com]

End ban on abortion information overseas

2008-02-11T12:59:00.000+10:00

Dani Barley
9 February 2008

In 2001, newly-elected US President George Bush made international headlines when he announced changes to how international aid organisations were to be funded with US money. Known as the “Global Gag Rule”, aid organisations were informed that, in order to continue receiving US government funding, they could no longer provide any information about abortion to their clients.

What is perhaps not as well known is that the Australian government has had the same policy towards its main aid organisation, AusAID, since 1996.

The Australian Reproductive Health Alliance states that there is “a ban on information, education or any communication about unsafe or safe abortion; a ban on any training of medical personnel in safe abortion techniques; a ban on access to emergency contraception (EC) in the aid program … Under AusAID’s Guidelines no information about abortion can be given and no service provided even to save the life of the woman and even in countries where abortion is legal.”

While such a ban has obvious health impacts, it also has a greater toll on the rights of women worldwide to decide on what happens to their own bodies. Emily Maguire, in her opinion piece for the December 31 Sydney Morning Herald explained it succinctly, “The ability to decide on the timing of pregnancy and childbirth is fundamental to a woman’s ability to make decisions and act autonomously in every other area of her life … Family planning services, such as those banned by AusAID, save women’s lives, improve their ability to contribute to society, help to reduce overpopulation and infant mortality, and slow the spread of diseases including HIV/AIDS. All of these things, in turn, work to reduce poverty and raise the life expectancy and health outcomes of the community as a whole.”

PM Kevin Rudd is now reported to be considering overturning this policy in light of a report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, currently chaired by Liberal MP Mal Washer. The report was initially submitted to the Howard government in May 2007, but was quietly shelved due to fear of alienating the conservative base of the party in a crucial election year. The report argued that the policy has contributed to the death of women in many countries overseas.

In East Timor, there is a birth rate of 8.5 children per woman and a maternal death rate 20 times greater than that of Australia. Similar statistics from around the world add up to
the fact that, globally, one woman dies in childbirth every minute. Unsafe abortion results in permanent injury or disease for five million women and at least 68,000 deaths each year.

In an interview with the January 8 Age newspaper, Washer explained, “it is ridiculous that we can’t give any advice to women overseas about abortion at a time when the government funds abortion advice to women in this country. It smacks of misogyny and stupidity.”

The report stated the guidelines preventing AusAID from advising women on abortion were “cruel and illogical” and effectively encouraged illegal abortions, accounting for 13% of all maternal deaths internationally. The report also argued that universal access to contraception and safe pregnancy terminations would reduce maternal deaths by up to 35% and child deaths by 20%.

The report, written after a series of roundtable discussions in 2006, boasts broad support from both Labor and Liberal party MPs. Federal opposition leader Brendan Nelson told reporters on January 8: “We also need to recognise and respect the religious convictions and views that are held by women in the developing world and also to see that they have access to an appropriate level of education so that they understand what they are able to do in relation to family planning.”

However, overturning these guidelines may be met with strong opposition from within the Labor Party itself. Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association national secretary and ALP national executive member, Joe de Bruyn — also a conservative Catholic — told the January 11 Australian he was staunchly opposed to any such changes and would consider raising the matter with the government.

De Bruyn, who is a powerful figure in the Victorian ALP right, has also been vocal on whether to allow the use of the so-called “abortion drug”, RU486, and a reported plan for state-based marriage registers for same-sex couples.

While the internal machinations of the ALP grind on, women who are affected by the AusAID ban on abortion information continue to suffer. It is crucial that women’s rights campaigners demand the Rudd government dump this archaic ban immediately — for the health and well-being of women globally.

2008-02-06T17:09:00.000+10:00

2008-01-27T11:31:00.001+10:00

The right of women to control their own bodies

2007-12-27T13:15:00.000+10:00

It must be the sole right of each woman to decide whether or not to prevent or terminate a pregnancy. All anti-abortion laws should be repealed. Abortion should be available on demand and the cost should be fully covered by the health-care system. Safe, reliable contraceptives for both women and men should be freely available to anyone wanting them. State-financed birth control and sex education centres should be set up in schools, neighbourhoods, hospitals and large workplaces. The right to reproductive freedom includes the right of a woman to bear children if she chooses. Sterilisation without a woman's consent, or the use of pressure to obtain her consent, should be outlawed.

The right of women to economic independence and equality

2007-11-27T13:18:00.000+10:00

This includes the right to full-time employment, equal pay, access to non-traditional occupations, and the raising of wages in traditional female occupations to make them comparable with those of traditional male occupations requiring similar levels of skill. Part-time workers should be guaranteed the same hourly wages and benefits as full-time workers. The party also supports paid parental leave, continuity of job seniority during parental leave, equal access to unemployment benefits regardless of marital status, and an end to discrimination against women in training and retraining programs. Beneficial protective legislation providing special working conditions to women should be extended to men in order to improve working conditions for all workers and to prevent such measures providing a pretext for discrimination against women.

Affirmative-action programs, with legally enforced quotas, are essential to redress the effects of decades of systematic discrimination in hiring, training and promotion. To overcome existing imbalances, preferential treatment must be accorded to women in hiring, training, job upgrading and seniority adjustments.

Cheap and conveniently available childcare services are essential to enable women to participate equally in the workforce. A program is urgently needed to create a network of free, government-financed, childcare centres in every neighborhood and at large workplaces. Such centres should be open around the clock and be able to cater for all children from infancy to early adolescence. The rearing, welfare, and education of children should be the joint responsibility of society, rather than solely the burden of individual parents. Laws granting parents property rights and total control over children should be abolished.

Women will not be able to enjoy genuine economic equality with men as long as they are forced to bear the main burden of domestic work. This is a socially created problem that demands a social solution. This would include the socialisation of domestic services through the creation of a network of easily accessible, low-cost, high-quality public laundries, cafeterias and restaurants, house-cleaning services organised on an industrial basis, etc.

The right of women to equal educational opportunities

2007-10-27T13:20:00.000+10:00

The present education system discriminates against women at all levels from preschool to postgraduate. There must be an end to sex stereotyping in educational textbooks, an end to channelling of students into supposedly male and female subjects, and to all forms of pressure on female students to prepare themselves for so-called women's work (homemaking, nursing, teaching and secretarial work).

Special preferential admissions programs should be introduced to encourage women to enter traditionally male-dominated fields of study and employment.

The right of women to freedom from sexual violence and exploitation

2007-09-27T13:21:00.000+10:00

Sexist violence is a daily reality that all women experience in some form. Even when this does not take the extreme form of rape, beatings and murder, there is the ever-present threat of sexual assault implicit in the widespread circulation of sexist literature and in gratuitous sexual comments and gestures in the streets and on the job. As the capitalist social order decays, this violence becomes more pronounced. The capitalist mass media and capitalist advertising create a social climate that fosters sexual violence and harassment by portraying women as sex objects.

A massive education campaign is needed to counter this debased view of women. Such a campaign should be promoted by the government in collaboration with the women's movement. Laws against sexual harassment of women should be strengthened and strictly enforced.

Increasing incidences of rape, wife-bashing and sexual assault on children reveal the need for a massive increase in the provision of facilities for the victims of such abuse. Such facilities must be independent of the courts and the police, both of which see their role as to enforce the status quo.

All laws that require corroboration of sexual assault or evidence of physical injury, or which imply blame on the part of female rape victims, should be repealed. Questioning of sexual assault victims about their past sexual activity should be prohibited.

Prostitutes should not be treated as criminals. All laws victimising prostitutes should be repealed.

Drop the abortion charges. Rally June 10.

2007-05-12T17:19:00.000+10:00

IWD poster 2007

2007-05-11T08:50:00.000+10:00

rally for abortion rights

2007-05-11T08:45:00.000+10:00

IWD 2009 rally in Brisbane

2007-01-25T21:01:00.000+10:00