Sisters and brothers from Canada, Mexico, and a large contingent from France travelled to D.C. to lend their support. Messages were received from France, Japan, Austria, the European Commonwealth, Feminists International, and a coalition of progressive Belgian organizations (on November 7 the Belgian Senate had voted to decriminalize abortion). One speaker from Canada, asserting that the U.S. struggle for abortion rights has been an inspiration to all women, not ed that there are finally no laws forbidding abortion in Canada, and noted that the recent period has seen abortion rights demonstrations and organizations in 33 Canadian towns and cities.
The November 12 mobilization came only seven months after what had previously been the largest women's rights demonstration in U.S. history. Last April 9 600,000 men, women and children of all ages, religions and ethnic groups marched on the nation's capital to demand that the Supreme Court uphold its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Yet
Nationwide mobilizations for
USA and died after weeks of agony. In 1977, Rosie Jimenez, 27, mother of a small daughter, was the first known victim of the Hyde amendment which blocked funding for legal abortion for poor women reliant on government funding (Medicaid). In 1988, "Cathy", 17, was the victim of a state law in Indiana requiring parental abortion rights notification for abortions for teenagers. She self-aborted and died of the resulting complications rather than "disappoint" her parents by telling them about her pregnancy.
Two speakers at the meeting were daughters of women whose lives were
THE LARGEST mobilization for abortion rights in U.S.
history took place on November 12. One million participated in events in 150 cities and in each of the 50 states. It began with a sunrise candlelight march in front of President Bush's vacation home in Maine, and ended with a sunset action in
San Francisco. The largest rallies were 300,000 in Washington
D.C. and 100,000 in Los Angeles. Cities reporting the biggest ever abortion rights demonstrations included; 20,000 in
Austin,Texas; 14,000 in Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri;
6,000 in Seattle, Washington; 2,000 in Boise Idaho. In Alaska
400 rallied in 25 degrees below zero weather. Demonstrations in solidarity with this mobilization were held in Australia and
New Zealand, in Stockholm, Paris, London, Warsaw, Tel Aviv,
Sao Paolo, and — in what is described as the first women's demonstration ever held there — in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
MELANIE BENSON despite this massive and powerful display of pro-choice sentiment, on July 3 the
Supreme Court rendered a decision in the
Webster case that granted individual states the authority to restrict access to abortion.
The outcry from supporters of women's rights was instantaneous. NOW immediately called for the November 12 march.
Its smaller size in relation to April 9 was more than compensated for by the breadth of the actions which took place all across the country.
SMILE
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On Sunday morning, prior to the start of the rally, hundreds attended the dedication of an Unknown Women's Memorial, commissioned by NOW and developed by the Fund for a Feminist Majority. The event specifically commemorated the lives of six U.S. women who had died of illegal abortions between 1929 and 1988.
The first of these, Clara Bell Duvall, 33, mother of five children ranging in age from 18 months to 13 years, had attempted a self-abortion with a knitting needle
BOTHER
DONT
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LITTLE HEAD ON
APARTHEID, WAR,
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REPRODUCTIVE
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NO DECISION
MAKING ALLOWED
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SEX EDUCATION
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BARGAINING being remembered. Another speaker, from the United Church of Christ, represented the hundreds of church leaders who had helped provide a safe underground network for abortion services before the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. A brochure distributed to participants noted that prior to the legalization of abortion in the U.S., 10,000 women died yearly of illegal abortions — and today 200,000 women worldwide die annually from illegal, botched abortions.
Monument to women who died from illegal abortions
The brochure stated in part, "This project is undertaken with the belief that if the names and faces of all the women who suffered and died were known, the debate on abortion would end". The monument itself read: "In memory of the courageous women who died from illegal, unsafe abortions because they had no choice".
"Freedom of Choice" was the overriding theme of the nearly five-hour rally that followed, and of the hundreds of signs, buttons and banners carried by those attending. There were nurses, social workers, psychotherapists, and emergencyroom personnel for choice. There were trade unionists, artists, television personalities, and musicians for choice. There were politicians, mountaineers, organic farmers, and "MIT Nerds for Choice". There were Catholics, Jews, Unitarians, Methodists and "A Baptist Grandmother for Choice". There were fathers, children, toddlers, infants and "Loving Mothers for Choice".
There were students, and more students, from almost four hundred large and small high schools and college campuses across the U.S. The Daily Bruin, student newspaper at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), reported on November 13 that "almost 20,000 students registered with NOW for the demonstration. The largest groups came from University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, which each registered 850 students". The contingent from UCLA was part of a 400 member NOW delegation from Los Angeles.
Some demonstrators marched and chanttheater. Some stretched blankets out on the
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OCT - R
International Viewpoint #75 • December 11, 1989
USA grass. Some stood packed closely together near the speakers' platform, singing along with the well-known folk songs of Peter, Paul and Mary, Ronnie Gilbert and Pete Seeger. They sang "I Am Woman" with Helen Reddy and cheered "Take the Power" by Kay Weaver.
The mood was jubilant and celebratory at times, angry and defiant at others — the outrage directed at U.S. President George Bush, the Supreme Court, and elected officials who vote against a woman's right to choose. Bush, who had just vetoed a bill that would have allowed Medicaid funding of abortions for poor women who were victims of rape and incest, came under heavy fire. As NOW President Molly Yard observed in her opening remarks, "How ironic that....as comes tumbling down, President Bush would enslave the people of this country by denying reproductive rights. We say 'No! We will not obey your dictates!' We will work with our sisters everywhere to make abortion a right all over the world. Let freedom ring here and around the world for women and for individual
Yard pledged that the movement would help build a "political army on behalf of freedom for women" by electing women and pro-choice politicians.
Participants flushed with feeling of power
Several elected officials and political candidates spoke at the rally, with the loudest applause given to David Dinkins, the first black mayor-elect of New York City, whose victory at the polls five days earlier was still fresh in everyone's minds. His victory, along with those of pro-choice governors of Virginia and New Jersey, had rally participants flushed with a feeling of power. A huge banner hanging across the front of the speakers' platform boasted: "Score: Pro-Choice 3, Bush 0". Sheri Odell, NOW vice-president and ralNovember 12, administered a pledge for feminist voters that was enthusiastically received: "I pledge not to vote for nor to support with my money or my time any candidate for any public office who does not fully support and work for women's equality and the right to safe, legal and accessible abortion."
Several rally speakers referred to the "feminization of power" in our lifetimes This theme was featured in much of the press coverage of the rally: in the New York Times "celebrating recent political victories and vowing to redouble their efforts in battles to came"; USA Today "Theme: Power at the Polls"; Baltimore Sun "Tens of thousands of youthful voters massed at the Lincoln Memorial here yesterday, cheering passionately as speaker after speaker threatened Bush and other 6 politians wor defeat uniess the come out firmly for abortion rights"; and the
Washington Post " Abortion rights demonstrators around the nation served notice yesterday that they will take revenge at the ballot box against candidates who oppose freedom of choice in reproductive
Along with "freedom of choice" the political (electoral) response was a major theme of the placards, banners, and buttons throughout the crowd: "I'm Pro-choice and I Vote", "Play Politics With My Body — You Lose", and "Dear Politician — Listen loud and clear/It's choice we want/or your career — Love, the
This focus by rally speakers and participants on the question of electoral politics points to one of the key problems that faces the women's movement today. The fact is that none of the politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties will be able to meet the criteria set forth in the voters pledge ("to fully support and work for women's equality and the right to safe, accessible abortion" - not even those whose electoral victories were hailed on November 12. These two parties cannot be made to serve a feminist agenda. Their first loyalty is to the profits of the big corporations that rule America, and that loyalty is, in the final analysis, completely incompatible with equality for
Women need an end to two party system
Certain individual politicians can, on certain key issues like abortion, be forced to take a correct stand at times due to mass public pressure. But if feminists want a real political alternative which can actually help lead the fight for women's rights — and not simply react to the fight which is being waged by the women's movement — it will have to find a way to aid the formation of a new political party, one based on the labor movement and the struggles of Blacks, Hispanics, and other oppressed sections of the U.S. population. At its convention last summer NOW discussed this issue and a resolution raising the idea of a new party was adopted. Unfortunately, little has been done so far to actually put that perspective into prac-
Other speakers pronged nature of the struggle, promising that it would be fought not only at the ballot box, but also at the clinics and in the streets. They spoke of the need for forging or strengthening alliances with more African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, men, gays and lesbians; of the need for education on the abortion issue; of the need to maintain an international focus. Robin Morgan, author of "Sisterhood is Global", reported that 340 million women in 65 countries are affected by the U.S. administration's refusal to contribute to International Planned Parenthood and other international family planning agencies.
A resounding ovation was given to Dr. Etienne-Emile Baulieu from France, medical researcher and developer of R.U. 486 ( a pill that induces safe abortion in the early weeks of pregnancy), who spoke of the role of science in giving choices and relieving suffering. He pledged the support of the biomedical community in the current struggle. Although the pill's availability is now severely restricted, easier access to and proper use of this pill, he said, "will defuse the abortion issue...[the] societal impact will be lessened with earlier intervention and a narrower circle of persons involved".
Representative of women in organized labour movement
Representing thousands of women in the organized labour movement, Joyce Miller, President of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) explained that the question of abortion is a health, civil rights, privacy, family and work issue - and that there can be no decency, justice or equality for working women if women have no reproductive rights. concept of choice to include the need for choice in health care, family planning, quality child care, parental and family leave, livable and affordable housing, and "schools that educate". At the AFL-CIO national union federation convention later that week, she and other CLUW delegates were going to be presenting a resolution to put the AFL-CIO on record for freedom of choice and reproductive rights
Dr. Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, speaking on behalf of Dorothy Height (National Council of Negro Women), explained that "[Black Americans] have tasted the bitter fruit of the denial of our rights. We have fought too hard, come too far, wept too bitterly, bled too profusely, and died too young...to allow turning back"
Warren Hern, author and doctor from Boulder, Colorado, who had helped to defend his abortion clinic against a serious assault by Rescue" (zealous anti-abortionists) called illegal abortion "barbaric, like the bubonic plague, slavery and public flogging" and claimed that the pro-choice movement is "on the side of history, truth, mercy, justice and freedom", avowing, "We will pre.
Finally, Rabbi Lynne Lansberg, in closing the rally, defended religious liberty, reminding those assembled that overwhelmingly, despite fundamentalist assertions to the contrary, religious people, "people of faith", are pro-choice. Her eloquent speech, ending with, "As God is our witness, pro-choice is pro-life!", brought a huge response from the crowd.
After five hours of speeches on every aspect of the issue, one sign perhaps conveyed the message most clearly and most simply: "No one knows better. No one else should decide."*
Knights of the round table
THREE weeks before the special congress of the East
German Communist Party (SED), which is to take place from
15 to 17 December, Egon Krenz, general secretary of the SED
CCORDING to opinion polls organized by West German institutes and magazines, a general election today in the
DDR would give a relative majority to the
New Forum, the most important of the
EAST GERMANY and head of state of the GDR, has proposed a round table, at opposition groups, followed by the Gerwhich the organizations and groups of the opposition will be man Democratic Liberal Party (LDPD -
"liberal" party in the Bloc which has able to participate, as well as the SED and the former parties of the "National Bloc". Krenz's initiative has surprised quickly emerged as the vanguard of
"reform" within the organizations of the everybody. It is true that a good number of opposition old regime). The SED would trail behind personalities and groups have raised the demand for a round with between 10 and 14% of the vote. The new
Social Democratic Party (SPD)
table in order to negotiate with the regime the measure and would be a little weaker still. The accurapace of political and economic reforms, and the transition cy of such polls is doubtful, but it is obvitowards a democratic regime. But this demand had never ous that the SED would be in a clear minority position.