The Leicester NAC group sets a good example of how the campaign can take forward the fight against the reconvening of the Select Committee as a step on the way to winning free abortion on demand, They are calling for a picket of local Labour MP John Marshall's surgery. This MP says he is against restrictive legislation, but he just happened to be away from Parliament when the vote was taken on James White's Bill. Leicester NAC are going to leave him be when it's time for him to vote against the reconvening of the Select Committee!
m many buier consutuencies, such as bolton, birmingnam and Sheffield, actions are also being taken to force MPs to abide by Labour Party conference decisions on abortion. In South London, local trade unionists are participating in a picket of the AUEW headquarters - all the AUEW-sponsored MPs voted in favour of James White! The threat of losing their seats is wooms very tear for many Mrs, mcluding James wnite nimself, as pressure mounts all over the country for a vote against me select committee Those anti-abortion forces grouped around organisations such as the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) are not going to be let off the hook either. One danger lies in the credence they give to Wilson's claims that the 1967 Abortion Act is being abused. A successful nicket of SPUC offices in West London last week exposed their emotional and false propaganda, and it is being followed up by further pickets in other parts of the country. SPUC doctors under fire SPUC doctors who refuse to provide abortion facilities in their hospitals are also under fire. In Cardiff a picket has been organised - with the support of the Trades Council, NALGO Action. and health workers - of the largest hospital in the country. the University Hospital. Two years ago, a brand new out-patient abortion clinic was built, complete with equipment but it has never been used tor abortions. The gynaecologist in naire sars ual mere is noncca lor it- oresumnadiy because as a supponer or srue ne inks there is never any need lor in no doubt as to where he should the chief gynaecologist, Dr Hugh McLaren, is another prominent SPUC member. He opposes abortion except for mental defectives, and insists on tying it to sterilisation measures. Local NAC activists are mounting a campaien for his removal as well as orgamsing a peudon acmanding mat me Area nearn Auln orit make abortion freely available by providing the necessary out-patient units. Fight for NHS facilities The fight for free abortion on demand means not just a fight against the Select Committee and restrictive laws in Parliament, but also a campaign for adequate NIS facilities to provide what is already legal under the '67 Act. The Campaign against the Cuts in the NAS is joining with NAC groups in many places to draw attention to the effects of Labour's cuts in social spending on abortion services.
At Charing Cross hospital in London, a picket is taking place in protest at the slashing of the budget for a new outpanen abordon cume. Locar working peopic at Normwick Park Hospital are demanding that some of the private facilities be turned over for use as abortion units. Demonstrations at hospitals, DHSS offices and Area Health Authority headquar ters are also planned in Norwich, Tyneside, Bristol, Coventry, Sheffield, Enfield, South London, Swansea, Leicester, Birmingto draw togetner au possiole supporters or NAc, and to ex plain the aims and actions of the NAC campaign, local public meetings, motorcades and demonstrations, rallies in shopping Centres ane sucer anu nousins estate mccumes are bone nee The culmination of the Week of Action in Scotland will be a demonstration in Edinburgh, while NAC supporters in and around London will be converging on Trafalgar Square on 22 November for a mass rally The success of all these activities will be measured not only by the numbers of people mobilised to take part in protests against the reconvening of the Select Committee, but by the strength of support that NAC can build in the trade union and labour movement. The fight for free abortion on demand took root in the TUC and Labour Party conference decisions. It now has to extend out to all corners of the workers movement il At a NAC meeting in Heme Hempstead last week, Renee Short pledged to vote against the reconvening of the Select Committee, and explained how tor. she had been individually urging sympathetic Labour MPs to do the same. However she refused to take a clear stand against the Wilson leadership's promise of a free vote on the abortion issue. But only by forcing all Labour MPs to vote on a class position can the working class be sure that their interests are represented in ParSUPER STAINLESS
Maclennan reports on the fight In their sixth week of strike action, and third week of occupared weekly 13 november 1975 cidence — as Boyd well knows — ship is to sort out hardship cases port.
TEST-CASE the Personna occupation go down Clydeside. For them, as for the bosses of the multinationals, the collapse of the occupation would ment far beyond the present local level of 9 per cent.
But how of the Social Security. It is no cointhat the right wing in the area (part of his home base), and in the factory itself, have tried to build a back to work' lobby, and now argue that the prime task of the occupation leaderand abandon their campaign for suploss of pay.
However, the willingness of the AUEW Executive Committee to see chairman Alan Rae - a member of No. 2 Divisional Council of the AUEW (TASS) - told Red Weekly:
'If the Trades Council are really serious about fighting Labour's programme of mass unemployment, they will make sure that this demonstration becomes a massive display of solidarity with the workers in occupation at Personna and their struggle for work-sharing with no All trade unionists should build for this demonstration with that aim in view?
The Paisley district committee of the AUEW sponsored a mass personna/sdn 5