“A woman’s right to choose abortion is a class question, not a question of conscience. That is why the Communist League opposes any reduction in time limits and campaigns both during the election and after in defense of a woman’s right to choose,” Peter Clifford, Communist League candidate for Edinburgh East, said in a statement. The Communist League is also standing Celia Pugh as candidate in Bethnal Green and Bow, London.

“Many people have been attracted to our campaign tables by our signs highlighting this question,” said Clifford.

Following a statement by Conservative Party leader Michael Howard that he would support allocating parliamentary time to discuss reducing the time limit for most legal abortions from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, many politicians and church officials have fuelled the push towards more restrictions on abortion rights.

Although Prime Minister Anthony Blair has said that abortion should not be an election issue but a matter for “individual conscience,” his health minister, John Reid, used a Labour Party election news conference to announce his support for a reduction in the time limit, having previously voted for a 16-week limit. Scotland’s First Minister, Jack McConnell, has encouraged the questioning of all candidates on their position on abortion and has called on all politicians to be prepared to reconsider their views. Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, has already voted for an attempt to reduce the time limit to 22 weeks.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster, has called for abortion to become an election issue. The Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, claims that medical advances and the “rising number” of abortions have made this an important question. Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien, president of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, has urged “Scotland’s voters to quiz their prospective candidates on this issue and demand that it is placed at the top of the political agenda.”

The 1967 Abortion Act is the law governing abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales. This law decriminalized abortion up to 28 weeks gestation under certain circumstances—stipulating that the procedure may be performed if the continuation of a pregnancy involves a greater risk to the physical or mental health of a woman, or her existing children, than having an abortion. In 2003, more than 180,000 women in England and Wales and over 12,000 women in Scotland had abortions.

The act does not apply in Northern Ireland. It is estimated that some 2,000 women travel from Northern Ireland to Britain each year to have abortions.

The 1967 act was amended by the 1990 Human Embryology and Human Fertilisation Act. The new law lowered the legal time limit for abortions from 28 weeks to 24 weeks, except where there is grave risk to the life the woman or her physical and mental well-being, or in cases of severe fetal abnormality.

Although so-called late abortions are a main target of the current debate, less than 2 percent of abortions in 2003 were carried out between 20 and 24 weeks. Recently published figures show that only 25 abortions have been carried out past this period in Scotland since 1998.

“By concentrating on developments in the medical care of prematurely born babies and the emotive aspects of the very small number of late abortions, opponents of a woman’s right to choose abortion try to shift the focus away from women’s right to control their own bodies, to decide if and when to bear children,” Clifford said in his statement. “Under the banner of ‘viability of the foetus’ they are, objectively, trying to turn back the clock to when women’s role was to bear children and care for the family within the confines of the home. The gains of the 1967 Act, making abortion legal and safe, have been defended by mobilizing tens of thousands of people in the streets.

“Any attempt to limit women’s right to abortion must be opposed by all working people. Fighting for the trade unions to mobilize—as they did in 1979 when a demonstration supported by the Trades Union Congress drew 80,000 people—will not only strengthen the fight to defend women’s abortion rights,” the statement continued. “It will also help strengthen the unions themselves to defend the interests of all workers—male and female—as the bosses push to increase their profits by lengthening the working day, raising the retirement age and exploiting part-time and temporary workers.”

(For more information on the fight for abortion rights in the United Kingdom, see “‘Vera Drake’ shows why right to abortion is a powerful social gain” in the March 14 issue of the Militant.)
 
 
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