Wing class made the name of John McLean, the Clyde Workers Committee and the George Square riots famous through-* BUILD A SCOTTISH CENTRE!! Socialists have grown used to reading headlines about the political situation in Scotland over the past few years.....the UCS and Plessey occupations, the use of troops against strikes by firemen and dustcart drivers, and recently the police riot against anti-fascists at Kingston Halls. But beneath the headlines there are political processes at work which are not so visible or dramatic as the demonstration of 100,000 workers in August 1971 or the arrest of 60 trade unionists in May of this year.
The Scottish working class is one of the best organised in Europe, with even previously weak sectors of the class - like lorry drivers and teachers - thrown into struggle, using out the European workers' movement. ********* This together with other contributions made a total of E1,897,90. Anonymous donation Supporter in Preston hi. Jones wales East London IMG Anonymous donation Engineering worker IMG Stall at Rouge Fete next target of £4,000 by the end of November.
to donate a minimum of t250 Week').
Among other things, the Labour Government has agreed to increase the administrative burdens on doctors who carry out abortions, impose quotas on the number of foreign women attending private clinics, tighten up the registration of private clinics and referral agencies, and limit abortions after 20 weeks to those places where special resuscitation equipment for the foetus is available.
Far from correcting the so-called "abuses' of the 1967 Abortion Act, these moves will lead to further delays and restrictions on the number of women who can obtain safe early abortions, and will drive woflying pickets, elected strike committees and democratic mass meetings over the last year. Despite that level of trade union strength the massive political legacies of capitalist exploitation are only too clear: the housing shortage in Aberdeen, the migration and poverty of Glasgow and the unemployment of Clydebank are daily visible examples of both the horror and brutality of capitalism and the bankruptcy of the reformists' solutions.
In the massive convulsion of European class warfare after the First World War, Scotland and the Scottish workScotland, only this time we have to make sure that the result is not the defeats and hunger of the 1920s.
One of the factors in making sure that this time the working class is not defeated is the construction of a strong revolutionary organisation which is part of the unfolding battles on a regional, national and international scale. A small but vital section of these battles have in the past and will continue to be fought out in Sctoland.
To transform the IMG in Scotland needs sober, patient political work - but it also needs money. We make no apology for asking for sizeable donations from our readers for use in Scotland. Our aim is to have by January a functioning political centre in Glasgow complete with the technical equipment necessary to build the organisation.
Last week we asked supporters to rush their Fund Drive money in to meet our OCTOBER TARGET of £1,500. Well we made it!
The bulk of the money came from a single comrade, who donated £1,000 he had inherited saying that the IMG needed it more.
£30 £55 £3 £13.50 £5.40 £700 We would like to thank all those people who see the need to support the fight against capitalism not just with words alone, but with hard cash! However, we are still waiting to hear from most IMG branches.
If you have no money - then make something for us to sell. Also, we are still looking for those rare people who inherit money, but support the fight to overthrow capitalism, to donate larger sums than ordinary people could do.
Rush all donations to: Jo-Ann, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.1. (please make cheques/POs payable to The Two days after the anti-abortion demo in London organised by the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, Barbara Castle capitulated to their demands by accepting a vote in Parliament - the restrictive recommendations in the Third Special Report of the Select Committee set up to discuss the James White Abortion (Amendment) Bill.
men to illegal dangerous methods of of abortion, or to the burden of unwilling motherhood. The major abuse, that of the total inadequacy of the NHS to provide the necessary facilities for abortions under the could say was: 'In difficult circumstances, I shall do my best to provide a uniform service.
the Select Committee should also to allow Parliament to debate its reestablishment in the coming session - much to the delight of the anti-abortionists like Leo Abse, who see this as a further chance to introduce ********************** The first skirmishes of our contemporary 1919 have already taken place in ****************************** Our thanks to this comrade and also to:
Health worker bUs worKer L. Hodges L. McDougal Anonymous donation North London IMG Birmingham teacher Their contributions will be vital if we are to make our **** without even Act, still remains. All Barbara Castle Now that the White Bill has fallen.
fall. But Barbara Castle has promised ************** lutely Party conferences. ~Cinct Dacka £5 LOU - We need at least 10 supporters restrictions. Furthermore, she proudly announced that MPs would once again be allowed a free vote.
I think that the record of this Government in recognising that this sensitive subject is a matter for individual conscience is unparalleled', she said. Certainly it is an unparalleled disgrace for a Labour Government not to take up the issue of abortion as a political and social issue demanding a clear class position. By allowing individual Labour MPs the right to choose how to vote, women themselves are automatically denied the right of choice about abortion, an elementary democratic right for the working class.
NO COMMITTEES If the Select Committee is set up with the same composition - a majority of well known anti-abortionists - its answers will always be the same, against the interests of women. The chances are, however, that the Government will recommend that the composition of the Committee is changed in a more liberal direction and that it should consider some of the more progressive ideas in the Lane Report, as well as the reactionary proposals it has studied up till In this way the Wilson leadership hopes to be let off the hook, with the abortion issue tidied away in some backroom in Westminster for another year, and both the pro-and anti-abortion lobbies fobbed off with promises of yet more reports. But supporters of the National Abortion Campaign must be absofirm against any Select Committee of MPs, group of lawyers or bunch of doctors deciding who should or should not have abortions. This decision must rest with the woman alone, as working class representatives recognised by the overwhelming votes for free abortion on request at the TUC and Labour ANOTHER BILL?
Even if the Government fails to get the Select Committee set up again, it has other cards up its sleeve. Last week David Owen announced that they would be working out how to get the legal time limit tor abortion reduced from 28 weeks to 24 weeks in pregnancy. It is also clear that pro-SPUC MPs are hoping to introduce another Private Member's Bill along restrictive lines, which could well get official GovIn this situation it is vitally important that members of the trade union and labour movement begin now to force the TUC and Labour Party to act on their conference decisions, to fight back against these attacks by the Wilson Government, as a first step to implementing the demand for free abortion on request.
In the next few weeks, supporters of NAC in the workers' movement will be stepping up this fight against the reconvening of the Select Committee. At a local and national level, trade unions and the TUC will be urged to pressurise sponsored MPs to vote in accordance with conference decisions against the establishment of any new Committee. Jo Richardson MP. supports in words thi oro doorion oDov uraneto make any chanenge to Casties proposais Constituency Labour Parties and the National Labour Women's Advisory Council will be approached along similar lines.
Up and down the country, preparations are going ahead for the Week of Action beginning 17 November to coincide with the opening of the new parliamentary session. At a meeting of all NAC activists in London last Saturday, the following plans were discussed for actions in the London region:
• Local activities throughout the week, including motorcades pickets of MPs' surgeries, public meetings, protests outside SPUC offices, pickets of hospitals, community health councils and DHSS offices, a rally at the AUEW headquarters against the reactionary positions of AUEW-sponsored MPs on abortion, street meetings and street theatre, and mass leafleting and postering of shopping centres and nousing estates • A huge lobby of Parliament on Thursday 20 November at 2pm for those free during the day like women with small kids, and students, and again at 6pm for people leaving work. On the same day, the petition calling for free abor tion on request with thousands of signatures will be presented.
• The culmination of the week's activities will be a mass rally in Trafalgar Square on the afternoon of Saturday 22 November, with speakers from the trade unions and labour movement, prominent doctors and other well known names who have given their support to the campaign. It is hoped that several thousand people will come from London and surrounding areas to join this protest against the reconvening of the Select Committee.
By building support for these ac tivities in the labour movement, as well as amongst women not yet involved in working class organisations the message can be brought home to the so-called representatives of the working class in Parliament that free abortion on demand will not be achieved by reconvening the Select Committee. • Nor will it be won by cuts in the NHS. It can only be won through the struggles of the mass of the working class against the reactionary policies of the present Wilson leadership.
JUST OUT! 1976 Women's Calendar. The ideal present 12.x 8 inches, printed on six different shades of cartridge paper, depicting various histor ical moments in the struggle for women's liberation over the last century. Only £1 (inc postage) from: Jo-Ann, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.1.
red weekly 6 november 1975
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october-we made it! * DON'T JUST SIT THERE - HELP US LIVLI.