Vol. 73/No. 36      September 21, 2009

The polarization around the right of a woman to choose an abortion, that is, her right to control her own body, is sharpening with the deepening capitalist economic crisis.

Abortion rights, like any advance for working people and the oppressed and exploited sections of society, were won through hard-fought struggle. Yet to many of those active in the fight to defend and extend legal abortion, the history of struggle that brought about this and other victories for women is often not well known, especially among younger generations.

So how did the legalization of abortion come about?

Prior to the dominance of capitalist social relations and class structure, abortion was seldom a criminal act. Beginning with the development of modern capitalism, however, access to abortion began to be restricted by the ruling class as a way to maintain women’s position in society and the family as a domestic servant responsible for the care of the young and the elderly. By 1910 abortion was illegal, except to protect the life of the mother, in all but one U.S. state.

The criminalization of abortion had devastating results on the health of women for the next several decades, with consequences falling disproportionately hard on working-class women. Without resources to hire a high-priced doctor, women who decided not to carry a pregnancy to term were forced to seek dangerous back-alley medical procedures that often resulted in mutilation or death. In 1930, nearly 2,700 women died due to botched abortions—around one-fifth of all maternal deaths that year. In 1969, the year before New York State relaxed the laws against abortion, approximately 210,000 women entered New York City hospitals due to abortion complications.

Women of oppressed nationalities felt the heaviest impact. Eighty percent of the hundreds of women who died from botched abortions in the years preceding decriminalization were Black or Latina.

In an August 31 Newsweek article, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, an abortion provider in Nebraska who is being targeted by antiabortion forces, describes an experience at a clinic that convinced him to become a provider. A nurse had urged him to spend a day at the clinic where she worked.

“Talking to the women reminded him of the patients he had seen as a medical student, in the days before Roe: women whose botched abortions, anywhere from the first to the third trimester, left them with perforated uteruses, intestines protruding from the vagina, or untreatable pelvic infections,” Newsweek said. “The way Carhart remembers it, it was a good week for the emergency room if only five women died.”  
 
Rise of women’s movement
The tremendous impact of the proletarian movement for Black rights and against government-sanctioned racial segregation in the South that emerged in the 1950s set the stage for the development of other forms of social struggle, including against the U.S. imperialist war in Vietnam.

The uncompromising struggle by the workers and peasants of Vietnam against Washington’s brutal assault, along with the successful movement built in the United States and among GIs overseas, helped bring about an end to the war and provided additional inspiration for movements of social struggle.

By the late 1960s, a general radicalization had developed, especially among youth, that provided momentum for the rise of a movement for women’s liberation.

The rise of the women’s movement was also a consequence of the sharpened contradictions between women’s “traditional” role under class society and the rapid expansion of industrialization and technology that took place after the Second World War, leading to the incorporation of many more women into the workforce.

As the massive expansion of capitalist development took place in the postwar boom, modern appliances, frozen and packaged foods, ready-made clothing, and other developments transferred many domestic chores from the individual family unit to social, industrial production. At the same time, more women than ever began working outside the home—from 34 percent in 1950 to more than 43 percent in 1971.

Meanwhile, developments in technology and medicine opened up more options for women to control whether or not a pregnancy was carried to term. Abortion had become a well-known, modern medical procedure that was safe under appropriate conditions. The contradictions between what was possible and what was legal had become sharper. (Today, there are fewer deaths due to abortion complications—0.6 per 100,000—than there are deaths related to childbirth—7.1 per 100,000.)

The fight for abortion rights and freedom from enforced motherhood emerged as a precondition for women’s broader liberation. In order to become fully integrated into society, including holding jobs, being active in unions, and participating in political activity, women first must have full control over their own bodies.  
 
Victory for women’s rights
The rapid growth of the women’s liberation movement quickly posed the question of abortion rights, making it an unavoidable issue for the ruling class. Partial victories were scored when individual states began decriminalizing abortion, including New York in 1970.

A landmark victory in the struggle for women’s rights came on Jan. 22, 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in the case known as Roe v. Wade.

Under the alias Jane Roe, a single, pregnant woman in Texas filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of herself and all pregnant women, challenging the criminal abortion laws in that state, which proscribed obtaining or attempting an abortion except for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. Henry Wade was the district attorney for Dallas, Texas, at the time.

The court ruled in favor of Roe, declaring that the Texas abortion laws were unconstitutional. The decision said that the laws were in violation of the 14th Amendment, which says that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The court ruled that the “right of privacy … is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”

In striking down the Texas antiabortion laws, the court established that states cannot restrict women’s right to abortion in any way during the first three months of pregnancy. In the next trimester, a state may “regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health,” the court said. After the third trimester begins, a state may proscribe abortion except in the case of protecting the mother’s life or health.

The restriction on access to abortion in the third trimester, along with the broad discretion allowed states in applying the law, have been fault lines along which opponents of a woman’s right to choose have encroached on abortion rights. Rightists and capitalist politicians have been trying to overturn legal abortion ever since, attacking it at the federal, state, and local levels. That will be the subject of a second article.

(To be continued)  
 
 
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