soe No. 811 ~X.523 10 October 2003 Stop Bipartisan Attack on Women's Rights! Free Abortion on Demand! Late last week, the U.S. House of the National Abortion and Reproductive Representatives, with the support of 63 Rights Action League (NARAL), Cristina Democrats, passed a bill banning a Page, joined forces with a leader of the seldom-used abortion procedure usually deadly anti-abortion group Right to Life practiced in the second or third trimester of Michigan, co-authoring an op-ed piece -grotesquely and misleadingly dubbed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (23 Jan­ by anti-abortion bigots as "partial-birth OONTCRAWL uary), also published in the New York abortion." A similar bill was earlier ~OR THE. Times, titled: "Pro lifers and Prochoicers passed by the Senate, and President Bush DEMOCRATS - Should Focus on Common Ground"! This has vowed to sign the ban into law. It FIGHT FoR is revolting. There should be no "common would be the wedge for overturning all A ground" between those committed to abortion rights, striking a blow to the WORKERS defending abortion rights and those com­ right of women in the United States to PARTY! mitted to the enslavement of women. legal abortion, subjecting abortion doc­ SPARTACIST NARAL, meanwhile, marked Roe's tors to possible prison sentences, and anniversary by changing the organiza­ potentially throwing women back to the tions' name so that the word "abortion" days of degradation, helplessness, fear would no longer cause offense, becoming and back-alley abortions. In fact, the bill "NARAL-Pro-Choice America." In a is deliberately worded so vaguely that January 21 speech, Kate Michelman, pres­ many obstetricians say that it could be ident of NARAL-Pro-Choice America, interpreted to outlaw second- and third­ pointed to the threat to abortion rights and trimester abortions entirely; other doctors remarked, "When historians write the believe even some first-trimester abor­ story of this moment, they will say every tions would be rendered illegal. The sin­ trend pointed toward the end of Roe." ister assault on abortion rights must be This is absolutely true. But today's roll­ stopped, now! back and threatened defeat of abortion Ominously, there has barely been a rights has been prepared by the program peep of protest against the reactionary of such bourgeois feminists and their sup­ attacks on abortion. What is needed are Photo porters preaching reliance on the Demo­ mass mobilizations, backed by the power Spartacists at 1994 Bay Area protest over murder of Florida abortion doctor cratic Party. Those who really want to of labor and independent of the Demo­ John Britton. Liberals, feminists demobilized struggle to defend abortion champion women's rights must wage their crats, in defense of abortion rights. But rights in favor of appeals to Democratic politicians. struggle independent of the capitalist par­ the strategy of reliance on "pro-choice" ties, breaking free from the "family values" Democrats and the courts pursued by the Wade was a rally of upwards of 50,000 preparations for the slaughter in Iraq to framework laid down by the ruling class liberals and feminists has served to demo­ anti-abortion bigots in Washington, D.C., praise their "devotion to the cause of life." and fighting for free abortion on demand. bilize the struggle. A clear example of who marched down Constitution Avenue The ostensible defenders of abortion The rollback of Roe v. Wade got its real that was the demonstrations commem­ to the Supreme Court brandishing posters rights used the days around the anniver­ start with Democrat Jimmy Carter, who orating the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. of aborted fetuses. At the Washington sary to advertise their capitulation in brought the religious right into main­ Wade Supreme Court decision in January Monument, the reactionary horde was the face of the anti-abortioll onslaught. As stream politics after the Vietnam War this year. addressed by telephone by bigot-in-chief the anti-abortion mobs howled, the pro­ and signed the Hyde Amendment which The most visible observance of Roe v. George Bush, who took a break from gram director of the New York affiliate of continued on page 10 any freedom of movement, what do they expect you to do?" The Haifa bombing also underlined the symmetry of interests between the Murderous Zionist anti-Semitic, anti-woman reactionaries of Islamic Jihad and Hamas (as well as their nationalist counterparts like Al Aqsa) and the far more powerful and danger­ ous Zionist state terrorists and their fas­ cistic settler auxiliaries. Both sides seek Provocations to widen the river of blood dividing OCTOBER 6-Yesterday's air strike threats to expel or assassinate Palestinian for which Islamic Jihad has claimed re­ the oppressed Palestinian Arabs from the against a Palestinian camp in Syria leader Yasir Arafat, a move which would sponsibility, is the direct-and desired­ Hebrew-speaking people and to poison marks yet another dangerous escalation certainly entail a massive bloodbath of result of the Sharon government's inten­ any possibility of proletarian class unity in the Zionist state's murderous war Palestinians. The Israeli rulers are encour­ sifying slaughter and brutalization of across national lines. against the Palestinian people. Though aged and emboldened by their Ameri­ the Palestinian people. It comes after a Indeed, the Islamic Jihad attack was the camp was unpopulated and no seri­ can imperialist patrons, who have armed series of deadly raids over the past two made to order for Sharon & Co. In the ous casualties were reported, this assault Israel to the hilt. The U.S. has also sin­ weeks by Israeli forces in Gaza and the last week, the Israeli bourgeoisie has deep into Syrian territory was a state­ gled out Syria as a target of tl!e "war West Bank town of Jenin, site of a Zion­ been confronted with a powerful strike by ment by Israel's bloody-minded rulers on terror" and last month vetoed a Secu­ ist army massacre of Palestinian refugees civil servants and port workers to protest that they accept no bounds to their anti­ rity Council resolution simply urging last year, and the regime's announcement long-planned government cuts in welfare Arab terror. Even more ominously, the Israel not to harm Arafat. Today Presi­ that the wall it is building around the spending. The port strike is centered in government of right-wing Likud prime dent Bush refused to condemn the Israeli West Bank will drive deep into Palestin­ Haifa, which is, moreover, one of the few minister Ariel Sharon has renewed its air strike in Syria, instead asserting ian territory around the Zionist settle­ predominantly Hebrew cities with a sig­ Israel's "right to defend" its "homeland." ment of Ariel, dividing Arab families nificant Arab population. The restaurant 41 U.S.lIsrael hands off Syria! Israel hands and separating farmers from their lands. that was struck by Islamic Jihad was co­ off Arafat! Speaking before the latest suicide bomb­ owned by Arabs and Jews, and employed The immediate pretext for the Zion­ ing, one embittered Palestinian olive and served people from both communi­ ist provocations is the heinous suicide farmer told the New York Times (4 Octo­ ties. In timing the attack for a Saturday, bombing of a Haifa restaurant on Satur­ ber): "When they take your land, kill the Jewish sabbath, the perpetrators effec­ day, killing 19 and wounding 50 others. your sons, deny you food for your fam­ tively ensured that their target would 7111.25274118103011117 This criminal act of indiscriminate terror, ily, demolish your houses, and deny you continued on page 10 Down With Government War on Civil Liberties! The Bush administration's admission include a provision to strip citizenship last week' that the PatrIot Act is being from those who get in the way of Wash­ used in cases far removed from even its ington's imperial designs. In the adminis­ own sweeping definition of "terrorism" is tration's typically arrogant and ignorant a chilling confirmation that the "war on way, they attempt to win over public terror" is aimed against the civil liberties support by touring possibly their most of the population as a whole. One Justice unappetizing figure-a man who among Department spokesman boasted, "There other things built a replica of the Statue are many provisions in the Patriot Act of Liberty out of barbed wire and covers that can be used in the general criminal up the breasts of statues in the Justice San Francisco, law" (New York Times, 28 September). Department when he gives speeches January 6: The Times article reports, "The govern­ Protest against there. And who is this public whose ment is using its expanded authority registration and hearts and minds Ashcroft seeks to win under the far-reaching law to investigate detention of support for unrestrained police power­ suspected drug traffickers, white-collar immigrants. gatherings of cops and prosecutors! criminals, blackmailers, child pornogra­ Ashcroft's primary target in this tour phers, money launderers, spies and even has been those sweet little librarians who corrupt foreign leaders" in "many hun­ belong in Norman Rockwell paintings­ dreds of nonterrorism cases." their crime is warning library users that A measure of the breadth of the gov­ the Feds are monitoring what they read. ernment's pQtential hit list is the Feds' So desperate is Ashcroft, an open lover of recent announcement of a centralized camps during a "national emergency." detained under suspicion of espionage at the Confederacy, he's even taken to invok­ "terrorist watch list" of over 100,000 per­ During the protests against the U.S. inva­ least three men-all of them Muslim­ ing Abraham Lincoln as authority for the sons, a throwback to the McCarthyite sion of Iraq, the government used a who were acting as chaplains or interpret­ need for these police state measures.