BY JACOB PERASSO
CHICAGO - Fifteen students and young workers, including
members of the Young Socialists, took part in a protest against
an attack on women's right to choose abortion at DePaul
University here April 28. "Not the church, not the state, women
will decide their fate" and "Stop the lies! Hands off my body!"
chanted the pickets, who kept up the action for more than an
hour despite a light rain.
The protest was ignited by an anti-choice ad placed in the campus newspaper, the DePaulia, by the Illinois Right to Life Committee. The advertisement claimed that woman who have an abortion are more likely to get breast cancer and asserted that abortion is the "#1 cause of death in Illinois."
The Young Socialists recently established a chapter in Chicago, through the recruitment of a DePaul University student. The YS has organized two meetings at DePaul, one of which was a discussion forum on the U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Students at DePaul have participated in campaigns of the Young Socialists, including building and participating in political forums, attending demonstrations, and staffing book tables on campus.
YS activity on the campus has been covered in the DePaulia. The newspaper took note of young people selling socialist literature and campaigning against the US/NATO bombing outside the Schmitt Academic Center. It ran a photo of the literature table and quoted those campaigning, as well as an article headlined, "Socialists call for end to bombing," covering the YS discussion forum on Yugoslavia.
The YS in Chicago has also worked to bring students from DePaul and other young people in the area to picket lines and labor rallies. David El Rassi, a student at DePaul, has visited three times the picket line of striking steelworkers against Tool and Engineering here in Chicago.