B.M.A. BACK ABORTION
Doctors and medical students, together with National Abortion Campaign supporters from all over London, lobbied a meeting of the British Medical Association Council on 3 June which was discussing James White's anti-abortion Bill. Two representatives from the recent successful occupation of the BMA were eventually allowed into the meeting, and demanded that the BMA support and mobilise for the NAC demonstration on 21 June. But as IG member Dr Berry Beaumont reported back afterwards: 'They were very concerned to oppose the Bill because of its effects on doc tors' "clinical freedom", but seemed to think that demonstrating on the streets for a woman s right to abortion was just ratner amusing.
been organised by NAC activists in hospitals all over the country, and campaigns are from twenty hospitals in London alone will be turning out on 21 June. However, most other health workers don't share their views. Mass meetings have BMA FIGILI SUPPOR Dr Ronald Gordon wants to sterilise an 11-year old girl, because, he claims, she suffers from a congenital disease'.
Gordon is allied with the motley crew who support the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC), and the ideas of Sir Keith Joseph. What unites them is their bitter opposition to the idea that women should have the right to choose.
nen the chains worea binesner to ta sterilisation, abortion and contraception must rest with the woman concerned Such ideas drive Joseph and his cohorts mad. They think these decisions should be taken by responsible people - in other words those who accept the norms and values of capitalism.
right to choose If the woman has the right to decide now being waged against doctors and hospitals who refuse a kitchen sink and domestic drudgery begin to snap. What terrifies all these so-called experts is that the moment you put a queston mark over une taca that the role of women is to be wives and mothers, then a vital cornerstone of capitalism begins to crumble BREED FOR PRODUCTIONwhose effects will almost certainly be irreversible. Despite all Gordon's claims to the contrary, only five out of every 100 sterilisation cases are reversible prejudice Gordon argues that she is 'too young to be pregnant' yet in the same breath claims that she is sexually mature. Perhaps the 'safe" way would be to sterilise every 11-year old who has sexual inclinations and feelings!
Such ideas have more in common with witchcraft and prejudice that science. There is no rational basis for saying that sexual promiscuity is tied up witn une miness or this young woman This quack" cannot produce one single scientific or medical argument to justify sterilising this girl.
If he really cared about her problems he would recommend some form of conThat means that she, not ne, would take te choice. masteda nu capitulates befor her illness and washes nis nanes of trying to and any cure What a commentary on the medical profession. They prostrate themselves before the inevitability of illness and treat their patients like people without tion rather than admit that they are a product of a capitalist system which denies the working class the most elementary rights. They prefer to sweep all unis under tne carpet and arraen une blame to the victims of capitalism They viciously describe the poor, the sick, and the oppressed as unworthies. They have neither compassion. nor hum anity. They view people • and women in particular - simply as objects to serve ine neeas or the producuve torees.
What capitalism needs is a compliant, obedient nation of 'healthy mothers. Women who do not fit into this patteri are useless'. Gordon has revealed what it is all about. Capitalism can offer women nothing better than being breeders If they cannot fulfil that role, then scientists will toss them on the scrap heap.
a denial of rights These capitalist values have turned Dr Gordon into a pseudo, de-humanised apologist for medical progress. For his intended victim they mean humiliation, degradation and the denial of her fundamental rights as a human being
EURNU CONnA do del doma CU * LOTTA RIVOLU.. ZIONARIO JUIC DI0 abortion/ rhodesia
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BMA FIGHT WHITE