referred by an advisory bureau registered with the Secretary of State. Informal sources of reterral, olten most accessible to working class women, will not be acceptable. It is highly doubtful, for example, if women's centres would qualify for the Secretary of States registration procedures.
* Women over 20 weeks pregnant requiring abortions will be unable to get them unless the clinic or hospital has 'proper' equipment. In light of the swingeing cuts in the NHS budget made by the Labour Government, long waiting lists have increasingly forced women to the private sector in the late stages of pregnancy. Now even this unpreferrable option will be closed. Only the large hospitals and clinics are equipped with the resuscitation' Over 150 people from all over Scotland met in Glasgowlast Saturday for the Scottish National Abortion Campaign resented mcluded oranches oreleven trade unions, several trades councils.
Scottish NAC groups, women's liberation groups, IMG, IS, Revolutionary Communist Group, etc.
The main speakers at the conference were Dr Berry Beaumont. from the NAC Steering Committee in London, Ur Elizabeth Wilson, from the Family Planning Association, and Angela McHugh, an AUEW shop steward and member of IS. Cathy Clark, an IMG member who played an important part in organising the conference, explained why it was so necessary:
ISOLATION *We felt there was a need for a re and the existence of very strong anti-abortion forces in Scotland - James White's constituency is right on our COOTSLED. un top or mis were is une strength of the Church, and the failure to get the 1967 Abortion Act properly operated in the West of Scotland. Many people do not know that every year over a mousand women are forced to travel to English clinics to pay for private aDOTuons.
In the debate around the slogan A Woman's Right to Choose', the conferCIce was ConUsCE aDour now to mEter pret unis in the context or the tasks or the abortion campaign. The IMG suc"dressed up' with 'niceties' designed to paper over the restrictions they impose. Barbara Castle made 'sympathetic noises about arrangements for 'counselling, advice and aftercare, and about the preventative action taken by the Labour Government, such as the establishment - of family planning schemes on the NHS. She failed to mention that the cuts in the NHS budget mean a six months waiting list before these great advances can be used!
Barbara Castle's statement also hinted that a vote would be taken in the next parliamentary session iate activity around the expansion of nurserv and dav-care facilities.
these demands. However, we see that the most immediate threat to a wo man's right to choose' arises from the Labour Government's manoeuvres to implement immediate restrictions on the current legal restrictions, our ability to fight for the extension of the availaband social changes which will enable women to have a 'real' choice, will be considerably weakened.
the dangers of Labour's proposals. On the one hand, it voted for an offensive campaign incorporating the demand for positive legislation to establish abortion on request. On the other hand, the wim me new session or rammentin dorsed by all those present.
A BATTLE The discussions in the workshops and plenary sessions showed the need to implementation of the TUC and Labour Party resolutions calling for women's right to abortion on demand. This must ing of the Select Committee.
Geraldine Smith has now virtually disappeared. The only reason for resurrecting the Select Committee is so that it can continue its sordid task ot finding further ways to restrict women's right to abortion. 1967 Act have been the sabotage carried out by reactionary doctors refusing to implement even the limited gains it represented; and the Labour Government's consistent policy of cutting back on NHS facilities, which has further restricted the availability of abortion to wOrkIng Women cessfully argued against proposals to extend the basis of NAC to include immedObviously we are not opposed to abortion through the Select Conmittee's proposals. Unless we succeed in defeating ility of abortion, and for all the facilities Conference did not fully understand , for a week of action to coincide mid-November were overwhelmingly enmovement and the Labour Party for the sant wu a patue ooposing me reconven penditure, and lower The real abuses of the its work 1 and
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ABORTION A WOMAN'S RIGHT