Washington, D.C., April 25 contingent will demand:
'Stop the war on women'
By Minnie Bruce Pratt
The International Action Center will march in
Washington on April 25 with an anti-war contingent sponsored by
the International ANSWER coalition--Act Now to Stop War and End
Racism.
Contingent organizers stress: "Come out to march for women's
reproductive rights and against the economic oppression of
women and end the war abroad--and at home!"
The historic march on Washington is called to oppose the
Bush administration's accelerated attacks on women's
reproductive rights, including access to abortion, con
traception and sex education.
Organizers of the overall march include Black Women's Health
Imperative, Feminist Majority, NARAL Pro-Choice America,
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, National
Organi zation for Women and Planned Parent hood. This coalition
has stated that the goal of the April 25 mass march is to up
hold "choice, justice, access, health, abortion, global and
family planning." (www.marchforwomen.org)
Activists from around the country are mobilizing to take
part in April 25, including hundreds of groups representing
women, people of color, labor, lesbian/gay /bi/trans
communities, civil rights and social service groups, students,
AIDS acti vists and religious organizations, as well as health
clinic workers and service pro viders across a wide political
spectrum.
Women fight back against war, racism, poverty
ANSWER's April 14 call stated, "The Bush administration and
the ultra-right are working to overturn the gains the women's
movement has made over the last thirty-five years. Women have
the right to control their own bodies and their lives."
An IAC statement linked government attacks on women with
U.S. repression against working people, both at home and
abroad. Domestic services are cut back as military spending
increases astronomically. Women within the U.S. lose more and
more of their reproductive choices while the U.S. invades or
overthrows any country asserting any degree of
self-determination.
The IAC demands "full reproductive rights for all women,
with all of the social and economic programs required to
exercise those rights," including safe, legal abortions on
demand; government funding of quality, accessible health care,
child care, and housing; social services for all who need them;
and jobs at decent pay.
In its call, the IAC affirms the connection between the
struggle for reproductive rights, the end to attacks on
immigrant women and people of color, and the extension of full
rights, including marriage and adoption rights, to
lesbian/gay/bi/trans people.
Central to all these struggles is "an end to the U.S.
government's program of pov erty, racism, sexism, homophobia,
and repres sion at home, while pursuing war and occupation
abroad from Iraq to Haiti."
The anti-war contingent will organize at two meeting
locations before assembling on the Mall: (1) 7th St. between
Madison Dr. and Constitution Ave. NW and (2) 7th St. between
Jefferson Dr. and Indepen dence Ave. SW. Activists can also
meet up with the contingent at the main assembly area on the
Mall on the southeast corner of 7th St. and Madison Dr. NW.
Activists who want to take part in the anti-war contingent
are urged to look for the anti-war banners of the IAC and
ANSWER.
For more information about the anti-war contingent, call
(202) 544-3389 in Washington, call (212) 633-6646 in New York,
or visit the websites www.iacenter.org and
www.internationalANSWER.org
War and reproductive rights
The Bush administration cynically justified its wars on
Afghanistan and Iraq as also "liberating women"--while U.S.
political strategy devastated conditions for women in both
countries.
U.S. military attacks continue to kill Afghan and Iraqi
people, most recently over 600 in the city of Falluja, the
majority women, children, and elderly people. (Associated
Press, April 11)
The U.S. exerts imperial control over women worldwide with
tactics like denial of funds to United Nations agencies that
distribute contraceptive information and devices. The result? A
projected 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced
abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, and 77,000 infant and child
deaths, in countries where from 40 percent to 60 percent of
pregnancies are unwanted. (Population Fund)
Impoverished women in the U.S. have been denied abortion
funding through Medicaid since 1976, with the passage of the
Hyde Amendment. Federally funded abortions are also denied to
many other groups including federal prisoners and military
personnel.
A U.S. woman soldier, like those recent ly sexually
assaulted by fellow soldiers, would have to prove rape or pay
for her own abortion if she found herself pregnant, while the
women of Iraq watch their children and loved ones die from
depleted uranium armaments dropped by the U.S.--or from the
resulting cancers.
The Bush administration's war on the world for profits is
also a war on women and their reproductive rights.
Reprinted from the April 22, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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