-'- NUMBER 56 25 CENTS-:iIi:i» ..... c· __ · .. -- ; \. JULY IAUGUST 1977 '- f Black Students Defy.· Vorsfer Apartheid Terror '- Stalks Soweto Resurgent mass protest and brutal police./ the self-pr?claimed representatives of the Soweto' violence marked the first anniversary of the masses. murder of 13-year-old Hector Peterson by Prime In response, police showered the protestors MinisterB.J. Vorster's stormtroopers in Soweto with tear gas and hails of shot gun pellets, last June 16. , leaving at least three wounded. The following Tens of thousands of black workers stayed day, however, the government backed down and away from work as black youths -demonstrated deferred the. rent increases, and charges 'w~re in commemoration of the Soweto mass,acre dropped against 49 arrested students.' which sparked the continuing revolt' that has Two weeks later, on May 10, another series rocked South Africa and left more than 600 of protests begaI) as hundreds of student~ walked blacks and "Coloureds" (those of mixed race) out of Soweto's' OrlandO High School and three dead, martyred by apartheid terror. Despite other schools, calling for· an end to the system the peaceful' character of the meetings and of' "Bantu education". The students again con­ school boycotts_ organized by Soweto youth over fronted the UBC, demanding that two students the preceeding weeks, the Vorster regime un­ detained in the April 28 demonstrations be leashed its murderous armed guards on the released. By the beginning of June, the increasing protesting st~ents. p ~e~sur.E! ..9t. tl,),~ .• ~o1Yt}io .~WAA.¢,~¥t~,lile~~~~> Council (SSRC) haCt· forced the ma1brltyof tIle The June 16 commemoration followed a rising ~BC to resign. - . series of militant demonstrations against the hellish conditions of everyday life of non-whites Soweto Under Mart'al law under apartheid. On April 28, chanting "Away With High Rents, " and· "We Will Not Pay," As June 16 approached, the South African 2,000 black high school students demonstrated police took measures to forestall any massive in Soweto against the openly punitive 30 to 80 black student· protests. On June 8 scores of perc'ent rent increases. The government-ordered black activists were arrested, including Mapapa measures for the Johannesburg-area black town­ Wauchope, the head of the Black Peoples Con-' ships were supposedly intended to "offsetlosses" vention, and Jackson Nkosiyane, the leader of incurred through the burning down of goverriment­ the Transkei opposition. On June 10 scattered owned shebeens (beer 'halls) during last year's deI!lonstrations by black youths and the stoning protests-but were rightly seen as another attack of vehicles immedi~ately led to further pOlice. on blacks in this overcrowded and squalid labor attacks. compound. The students also demanded the resig­ By June 13 paratroopers had surrounded nation of the quisling Urban Bantu Council (UBC­ Soweto and blO&ked the rgads leading in and' (South African 1'lot'cops (top) pump bullets end widely derid€a as· the', "Useless Boys' Club"), continued on page 5 tear gas Info protestlng'Soweto blacks (bottom). /' Anita Bryant: Vilio'us andObs~!!!~n~ .~ -:.~. June 26 demonstration in New York City drew an estimated 100,000 protestors to demand full democratic rights for homosexual!! ,-, 2. YOUNG SPARTACUS Editorial Nole' Carter Kills IT--.~'~"" ' -l.' ,.it Medicaid Abortions: ~'I'" .,' I 'j. I_ ~ ; ,' -, / ,""".... / High, Court t_ Vi i 'j I "N.. " 1-)"'"t . >" SeDleDees Poor .. \"'><. to Back-Alley Butchers Coat-hanger abortions by back-alley butchers It is necessary for the left and labor movement Supreme Court justices wrote the entire program have been widely regarded as a fading horror in '" and all concerned with defending democratic rights of WONAAC into law, and that was the end of the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court to oppose", these reactionary actions of Congress that "mass movement." legalized termination of pregnancy upon request. and the Supreme Court. These decisions target Yet to this day the SWP /YSA is opposed to But despite its all-purpose "human'rights" rhet­ the 'poor, the young, the uneducated and racial waging ~ struggle'to win free' abortion on demand. oric the Carter administration has just provided and ethnic minorities; 75 percent of the women In a major polemic against the SL/SYL which a boon for the bloody business of the kitchen- who die in home abortions are non-White. And appeared in Intercontinental Press exactly one table quaCks. .' these decisions can only embolden the reactionary, week before the SUpreme Court ruling prohibiting After publicly taking a "personal"standagainst "right-to-life" forces who have set tl1eir sights Medicaid abortions, the SWP again attacked us abortion, Carter recently succeeded in getting on nothing less than forcing through a COn­ for raising the slogan "Free Abortion on Demand" Congress and the Supreme Court to take actions stitutional amendment forbiddipg ail abortions. in WONAAC, arguing that this demand is "a good to halt government funding of abortions. As a Even though these recent moves by C,!ngress proposition that simply was not the issue at the result, many of the estimated 300,000 poor and and the SUpreme Court do not challenge legalized time." working women who every year obtain legal hos­ abortion, they were clearly in response, to the Instead, we are told that poor and working pital abortions funded through Medicaid will be grOwing pressure from reactionary "right-to­ women should be content to make do with Medicaid: left with only one "human right"-choosing be .. life" forces organized by outfits Uke the National "In a country such as the.United States, since the ~73 tween giving birth to unwanted children Or risk­ Rig~ to Life Committee and massively funded Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, this has ingmutilation and even death at the hands of by the Catholic Church. Commenting on why so meant that abortion costs are coveted by government amateur and fly;'by-night abortionists. many libe~al Democrats recently changed sides social insurance and welfare programs and by many of the That "born-again" Baptist in the White House in the fight. over Medicaid abortions, Oregon private medical plans that most (!] U.S. workers and their no doubt claimed a great victory for "moral Senator Bob Packwood candidly stated, "To Pol­ families possess. This is not exactly free [!!] and there are government" when on June 29 the Senate voted iticians, they [the opponents of abortion] are a currently reactionary attempts to eliminate abortions in favor of a Carter-backed ame'ndment to a frightening force. They are peoplewbo are with from Medicaid coverage'; but legalization was a tremen' Health, Education and Welfare appropriations bill you 99 percent of the time, but if you \Tote against dous gain, nonetheless." that would prohibit Medicaid funding of abortions, them on this issue, it doesn't matter what else -Intercontinental Press, 13 June 1977 except in cases where pregnancy would endanger you stand for" (quoted in the New York Times. Pernaps these reformists are singiri'g a dif­ the' life of a mother or was the result of rape 1 July 1977). ferent tune after the Carter administration axed or incest. Earlier in June the House adopted an More ominous was the SUpreme Court ruling, Medicaid abortions? No, indeed! Even now the even stiffer amendment to the same bill, for­ which' came very close to adopting the Vatican SWP /YSA maintains that free abortion on demand biUding federal funding of any abortion, even when. position that abortion is a "moral" issue. In the is "not the .issue. 11 Search as you will, the call for deemed "medically necessary." , majority decision of the Court, Justice Lewis' \ free abortion on demand is nowhere to be found in " Although the Senate rejected a similar ban Powell stated that it was acceptable for states the lengthy statement issued by the SWP /YSA in last year, Congressional opposition to publicly "to make a value judgement favoring childbirth response to the Supreme Court ruling against funded abortions gained momentum after the over abortion, and to implement that judgement by Medicaid abortions (Militant, 1 July 1977). Supreme Court ruled on June 20 that states had the allocation of public funds." And only a few Just as in WONAAC, so today the SWP/YSA thE! right to prohibit Medicaid abortions. Already days after this. ruling the Court 'Ya'rmed. the heart places its appetites to wheel and deal in the 15 states have laws on the books forbidCiling of the Catholic Church even more by ruling that bourgeois-feminist, red-baiting National Organi­ government funding of "non-therapeutic" abor­ states could increase their aid to parochial zation for Women (NOW) higher than its supposed tions, and more and more states are follOwing schools. commitment to struggle for the needs of working suit. \ The legalization of abortion by the Supreme women. Women may be forced to resort to the Court in 1973 represented a real gain bene­ back-alley butchers in even greater numbers than fitting women and their struggle for democratic, before, but toe SWP /YSA is not about to risk rights. But even that hard-won reform fell far alienating would-be liberal allies by championing short of meeting basic needs of the masses of so "radical" ~ demand as free abortion. (If NOW poor and working women: the right to legal or s( ,me liberal Democrats were to pick up tht! abortion is' a cruel hoax for the welfare mothers demand for their own purposes, then the SWP/YSA who can't afford the medical costs or the Southern could indeed be counted on to at last decide that woman, who can't find a hospital or a doctor free abortion was now-"the issue.") Thus, the willing to provide the service.