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National Abortion Campaign In March decided to discuss and prepare a Bill that would embody a woman's right to choose. The model Bill proposed by ALRA was rejected as restrictive. This paper was part of the pre-conference discussion, and we submitted it as weil to the April 1977 Feminism & Socialism workshop on "Sexuality' because we belleve that all feminiats will want to participate in the drafting of a feminist Bill on abortion.
We opposed the ALRA proposals for two main reasons: because it is tactically Incorrect to make positive legislation the main focus of our campaign while we have a restrictive amending Bill in Parliament, and because we do not think the content of the BIll, specifically its acceptance of viabllity, will give women the right to choose.
What do we mean by a Woman's Right to Choose?
In the recent debate in Parilament around the second reading of Benyon's BIll, Maureen Colquhoun pointed out that restrictive abortion laws are a recent historical event: 'One of the myths used by the anti-abortionists, and often used in debates in this House, is that abortion natural law. Yet until 100 years ago almost nobody - not even the Catholic Church - punished abortion in the early stages of pregnancy." In 1803 the State started the process of making abortion a criminal act. In 1929 the foetus was given rights. The 1967 law lifted some restrictions, but left the decision with the medical profession, not with women.
We say that it is a woman's body and her life; she is entitled to control its reproductive function. No other person or Institution should be able to compel her to have or not to have children. We fight for this to be expressed in law because the State claims to have superior rights over the Individual's right to control her own life, and has the power to enforce this clalm.
Parliament and Abortion Rights Since 1967 the anti-abortionists have developed a massive campaign in support of a succession of Bills — Gryll's, White's, and Benyon's. We must not characterise the Benyon Bill as less threatening to women than White's Bill. If It gets through Parliament it will restrict women's abortion rights from two directions. It would both drop the make early abortions difficult to get because of the requirement to find two doctors to sign the form who work in different hospitals or practices, one of whom must have been registered for five years. The charitable clinics who last year did 30,000 abortions would cease to exist. It attacks civil liberties, giving police wide powers to enter clinics and hospitals to obtain copies of confidential records, by implying that a woman's GP must be told about her abortion, and by extending the time during which doctors and nurses could be prosecuted. The Bill would stop research into earlier and safer methods of abortion, by extending the Act to include D&Cs, and menstrual extraction The 35 organisations, Including NAC, that make up the Co-ordinating Committee to defend the 87 Act feit some degree of satisfaction because the voting differential since the White Bill has altered slightly. Does this mean that the focus of NAC should have been changed? Do we now feel confident that we can trust MPs to vote against the Benyon Bill without further attention from us? Do we feel that MPs presented with ALRA's Ideas for a Bill will change their minds about the Benyon Bill or any further abortion amendment BIll?NAC, ALRA and Parliament
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Since 1937 the Abortion Law Reform Association has been a parliamentary pressure group to convince MPs to legalise abortion. ALRA is a membership organisation whose members meet only once a year al an Annual General Meeting. Its day to day activities and policies are determined by an elected executive committee of about 20 people in London. In 1975 the committee changed its name to Woman's Right to Choose Campaign/ALRA', and some of its new feminist members helped to form NAC.
Implicit In the founding of NAC was the knowledge that the traditional organisations, including ALRA, were unable to defeat the White Bill. These organisations who had worked for and acted as watchdogs for the 1967 Act totally underestimated the strength and perseverance of the anti-abortionists inside and outside Parliament; moreover they had no effective and counteract them.
NAC was formed to bulld a mass movement to force MPs to recognise women's right to choose abortion. MPs vote pressures and criteria: (1) because their parliamentary should according to their personal views, (3) because of pressure from constituents, (4) because of a need to maintain sectors of society, drawal of support from the constituency party and sponsoring trade unions, (6) because national movement. The anti-abortionists recognised in the early ance of putting mass pressure on MPs.
The anti-abortionists recent gains in winning parliamentary support did not occur until they moved out from being a small parliamentary lobby into being a national campaign able to bring 100,000 people onto the streets against abortion. The Parilament of the last few years has become steadily more conservative under the pressure of the deep economic and social crisis of the period. abortionists have capitalised on this by exerting mass pressure. If MPs made their decisions on the basis of public opinion polls, the evidence of groups of specialists, or the presentation of good Ideas, there would be no need for NAC.
The main focus for NAC in the first six months must be to defeat the Benyon Bill. If we cannot stop the anti-abortionists from restricting abortion rights there is no way in which we can gain positive abortion rights in the next session. Our first priority must be to defeat the Bill; however, we should also be discussing in depth NAC's Ideas about positive abortion rights which clearly demonstrate what we mean by 'A Woman's Right to Choose' in law.
Our Objections to the Contents of ALRA's BIll The original Bill drafted by ALRA sought to establish a Woman's Right to Choose up to 12 weeks, when the right would revert to the doctor. NAC members argued against this, and ALRA's latest proposals call for this right to be extended to 24 weeks. Their arguments for a cut-off date fall into two categories: first, that at the point of viability the foetus establishes Its right to life which parallels or supersedes the woman's right to choose termination; secondly, a pragmatic consideration, the Impossibility of getting a Bill through Parliament without a time limit.
When Does Viability Occur?
In the USA in 1974, Dr. Kenneth Edelin performing an abortion on a 24 week foetus. The prosecution's case was that at 24 weeks it was viable and could have lived outside the womb. Ever since 1975, when American women won the right to abortion choice up to 6 months, argument as the main way to attack the It is not easy to determine the exact point at which a toetus could exist Independently of the woman. You only have to see the BBC documentary on Edelin's trial to see that there are many conflicting 'expert opinions. Premature extensive life support but the advances of medical science will mean that a foetus can be kept alive outside the mother's womb at an earlier and earlier stage -the eventual outcome of abortion laws dependent on viability would be a ban on abortion outside the very earliest weeks The US Supreme Court on 1 July 1976 unanimously upheld the Missouri law's definition of viability as "That stage of foetal development when the life of the unborn child may be continued Indefinartificial life support systems.' But they said that it was the function of the physician, not the iegisiature or the courts, to place viability at a specific point in gestation, and this point may vary with each pregnancy rather than being a constant forall pregnancies.
If we were to accept that the woman's right was conditional on the possibility of the independent life of her foetus, then the only way in which this could be translated into law would be if the upper time limit for abortion was the very Wage at which a foetus could survive. If you say that a woman's right is conditional and that a foetus of a certain age has rights, who then decides whose rights take precedence — the doctor? the State? the courts? The political argument of woman's life versus foetal life would have to be thrown removing from women their right to If early abortions and menstrual extractions were readily available, bearing complications of late would choose to have abortions past 20 weeks. But as the Lane Committee and Prof. Peter Huntingford have pointed out, the few women who do present after 20 weeks have compelling reasons for doing so. Those who challenge women's right choose to terminate through to the ninth month imply that women will take such a decision lightly.
Women's Rights versus Footal Rights The 'rights' of a foetus must match That is, while it is undeniably a potential human being, It is not yet a human being but part of the woman's body. It has potentlal rights that can be claimed at birth. If damaged in the womb and therefore still-born or miscarried, the mother claims not as a representative of the dead foetus, but in her own right, against whoever caused the damage. If a deformed child is born, it can claim in its own right, against damage done to it as a foetus.
We do not belive that there can be any abortionists on the question of viability. And we do not believe that it is the job of NAC, an abortion campaign acting for to take up such issues as defence of the foetus.
A Woman's Right to Choose means total control over reproduction. That is the principle we stand for. Insofar as her recognise that her right is impaired. Abortion on condition', or abortion 'until a certain time', Is not a "Woman's Right ALRA's proposals are based on viability arguments. They accept the limits set by the Infant Life Preservation Act, which they still want to leave on the statute books, although in an amended form. Thus it sets limits on the right of choice. Leaving the viability aspect of the ILPA virtually untouched certain target for the antl-abortionists to amend downwards. These are the most serious problems with regard to the ALRA What Kind of Legislation Do We Want ALRA are campaigning for a woman's right to choose within the context of the present system of law there is no way that abortion could be defined as legally enforceable right, that it is not important for our movement to challenge precedent, but that we should concentrate on changes and amendments that could be won more easily.
There are other lines of investigation that we could debate on the Benyon Fairbair MP stressed that Scotland had no specific abortion laws before the '67 Act: "A doctor could perform an abortion just as he could take out a tooth or an appendix.' Does not this imply looking more closely at a perspective of total repeal of all laws involving abortion -including the ILPA? Let us also discuss British legal precedent and duals in law.
It is important that we separate the fundamental principles of our campaign from the tactical considerations of when and how to adopt a particular form of advancing the struggle. We belleve that a Woman's Right to Choose should not be compromised by us. We must work towards the full right to choose In law. If we cannot win it fully, then we must be clear who bears the responsibility for limiting the right. We do not make concessions while the Bill is still in our hands. NAC must formulate what law we think is necessary to give women the right to choose. We will support anything which Is an advance for women in our endeavours to win control over our lives, but as a campaign we should not give away what is not ours to concede.
TONI GORTON WENDY FORREST DODIE WEPPLER BERRY BEAUMONT ROSE KNIGHT
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This article is a transcription of a talk originally given to a school International Marxist group.