Mass movement can defend abortion rights
Time to get back in the streets
By Sue Davis
The terrorist movement to stop women from
exercising their legal right to abortion reached a new low with
the Jan. 29 bombing in Birmingham, Ala. The clinic's security
guard was killed and the head nurse was critically wounded.
It was the 199th bombing of an abortion clinic since the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms began keeping records
in 1982.
This is the first time someone has died as a result of a
bombing.
Five other women's health workers, however, have been gunned
down: Dr. David Gunn in March 1993 and Dr. John Britton and
clinic escort James Barrett in July 1994, all in Pensacola,
Fla.; and Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols in December 1994 in
Brookline, Mass.
Hundreds of other workers and hundreds of thousands of women
who use clinics for gynecological care have been harassed,
stalked, threatened with death-systematically terrorized-over
the past 16 years. In Canada two months ago a doctor was shot
in his dining room while eating dinner with his family.
The Birmingham bomb was reportedly intentionally constructed
to "kill or maim."
Stronger defense of women's rights needed
Coming as it did a week after the 25th anniversary of the
Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion, the
bomb's message was clear. It was calculated to terrorize women
away from seeking needed medical care and to stop the medical
profession from providing it.
Yet the bombing only exposes the desperation and cowardice
of abortion foes, who usually try to claim the moral high
ground by hypocritically defending "fetal life." The Birmingham
killing reveals their true intent: to stop women from
exercising their right to life.
With women's health care increasingly separated from
hospitals as free-standing health centers, these clinics are a
symbol of women's changing role in society. Given the incessant
anti-abortion drumbeat of the Catholic Church, the Christian
Coalition, the Promise Keepers and many members of the
Republican Party, notoriously reactionary groups like the Ku
Klux Klan and other far-right vigilantes target the clinics to
express their hatred of women and contempt for women's
rights.
The government treats each abortion-clinic bombing as a
unique incident. The ATF claims it cannot find links among
them. Only a handful of perpetrators have been jailed.
What kind of state allows widespread, prolonged
violence-terrorism-to continue for 16 years? The same state
that framed, imprisoned and killed members of the Black Panther
Party when they dared to organize against racism.
As long as the capitalist class sees no compelling reason to
move against the ultra-right-wing elements terrorizing women's
health-care providers, the government gives the bombers a green
light. Of course, if banks were being bombed instead of
clinics, tracking down the perpetrators would be the state's
highest priority.
Among bourgeois politicians, even those who are supposedly
pro-choice-like President Bill Clinton-only pay lip service to
women's rights. Clinton denounced the bombing. But he did not
rush to Birmingham to comfort the victims' families, support
the clinic workers or offer funds to repair the building and
replace equipment.
He certainly didn't call on supporters of women's rights to
build a mass movement to defend the right to abortion.
But for women, that is exactly what's needed-a mass movement
that takes to the streets to beat back the attack on the right
to reproductive choice. That's what won the right to abortion
in 1973.
Independent mass action-not relying on politicians or
seeking government intervention-is the best way to defend
women's rights.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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