28.05.2008

Right to choose still under threat

SWP, ISG continue to equivocate on abortion. Jim Moody reports

All government recommendations were accepted by a majority of MPs in 13 separate votes on the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill last week. But the dramatic reverses in New Labour fortunes at the ballot box suggest the Tories are on the ascendant: the reactionaries campaigning against abortion will take comfort from that. They are certainly not going away.

Decisive though the votes were (the smallest government majority - 71 - came on the amendment to reduce the upper limit for terminations from 24 to 22 weeks gestation), other factors are at work to upset any cosy notion that the abortion question has been settled even in the medium term. Labour’s local election losses, Ken Livingstone’s dethronement, and the complete reversal at Crewe and Nantwich illuminate New Labour’s demise qua New Labour.

As for the Tories, they are cock-a-hoop. For the first time for a long time, the Conservatives as a governing party appear credible. While Cameron and a large minority of his party voted in favour of licensed testing of embryo tissue for compatibility with a sibling suffering from a serious medical condition, he and most of the rest voted against animal-human hybrid research and for reducing the abortion time limit. What is more, salami tactics by anti-abortionists can reduce the time limit to nothing if they play their cards right. Hence the chance of a Tory victory means a chance of serious restrictions on abortion.

One of the ramifications of Labour floundering seems to have been that some of the rats are preparing to abandon ship, including on abortion. Tory MP Nadine Dorries, whose amendment, supported by Cameron, to reduce the limit to 20 weeks was tacked onto the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill, has announced an intriguing link-up on her website: “I am delighted that following yesterday’s vote I received a telephone call from the widely respected Labour MP, Frank Field MP, who told me that after listening to my speech in the House of Commons yesterday evening, he changed his mind and decided to vote for my amendment. We have decided to establish a new, cross-party group to continue the campaign to tackle issues surrounding the rise of teenage abortions and pregnancy.”¹

Anti-abortion Labour MPs at least turned out to vote, so we know who they are.² But Respect’s sole MP, George Galloway, was absent from all 13 of these Commons votes on May 19 and 20. But, as Galloway said four years ago in The Independent on Sunday, he is “strongly against abortion. I believe life begins at conception and therefore unborn babies have rights. I think abortion is immoral.” He also declared: “I believe in god. I have to believe that the collection of cells has a soul.”³

If Galloway had made it to this crucial vote, his anti-abortion stance could have been openly examined by fellow members of Respect Renewal, and his suitability as the organisation’s MP assessed. But, of course, from the start Galloway insisted that Respect’s elected representatives should not be held to account - for him every such vote was a ‘conscience vote’. Instead of insisting that those representatives should be bound by Respect policy, the Socialist Workers Party went along with Galloway’s demands - only once the ‘unity coalition’ began to split did the SWP at last criticise him for his lack of accountability.

Where the SWP once trod, the International Socialist Group follows today. Its decision to go with the Respect Renewal split has led it too to turn a blind eye. Under the slogan ‘Defend 24 weeks - no reduction in abortion time limit’, the ISG blithely called for support for the emergency protest on abortion rights held outside parliament on May 20. Obviously, Galloway ignored this call. The ISG asserted: “An overwhelming majority of the public supports the right to choose: MPs should uphold choice and vote down amendments by Nadine Dorries and any anti-abortion MPs.”⁴ However, there is no mention at all of the Respect Renewal MP or the need for his party to hold him to account.

Neither is there any mention of the Respect Renewal MP in Veronica Fagan’s short article on abortion rights in the ISG-sponsored Socialist Resistance a few weeks before the Respect split was sealed. She merely proposed: “Pro-choice campaigners want to end the paternalistic - and dangerous - situation where a woman who wants an abortion has to persuade two doctors to support her first. We want a woman’s right to choose at least up to 12 weeks.”⁵ Presumably comrade Fagan means that the requirement to persuade two doctors should only apply after 12 weeks. Nevertheless, this represents a clear retreat from principle. It must be for the woman alone to choose - as early as possible, as late as necessary.

ISG diplomatic silence about Galloway’s anti-abortionism speaks volumes. If Respect Renewal is to have a future, then these questions must be honestly and openly thrashed out. There should also be a conference vote on the issue. And if that is to have any worth then George Galloway and other elected representatives should agree to be fully accountable.

The ‘art of the possible’ (ie, bourgeois politics) also infects the largest component of that other Respect rump, the SWP. Following the break with Galloway, the SWP resurrected its old, more radical approach to all those “shibboleths” (ie, principles) it had previously voted down. Principles like abortion rights had been junked to appease those to its right - Galloway and the mainly muslim businessmen in east London, Birmingham, etc - in the Respect popular front.

As is well known, the SWP voted down a CPGB motion to the 2004 Respect conference calling for a women’s unrestricted right to choose an abortion as a binding obligation upon all elected Respect representatives. Instead, people - ie, Galloway - were allowed a conscience vote on this and a whole raft of basic democratic questions that had until then been considered sacrosanct in the workers’ movement. Furthermore ‘A woman’s right to choose an abortion’ was reduced to an ambiguous “A woman’s right to choose” in the 2005 general election manifesto. And the question did not feature at all in Respect’s election campaign. According to leading SWP figures, abortion rights were not being raised on the doorstep.

Now abortion is once again discussed prominently in Socialist Worker. In his editorial column, Chris Bambery, mocks the idea that abortion is a “moral issue” as “plain wrong.”⁶ But there is still SWP fudge. Sadie Robinson concluded her online article by saying: “Activists across the country need to continue building Abortion Rights campaigns that can fight for improvements to abortion law and also be prepared to defeat attacks in the future.”⁷

Passable as far as it goes, but her article, fails to state specific aims - most importantly abortion on demand and abortion without time limits. Talk of “improvements to abortion law” does not really cut it in the propaganda stakes. What are these “improvements”? Are they mere tinkering or do they include removing time limits?

Without doubt, the SWP’s rediscovery of its roots is no more principled than the abandonment of them as “shibboleths".

Notes

1. www.dorries.org.uk
2. See full listing at www.publicwhip.org.uk/divisions.php
3. The Independent on Sunday April 4 2004.
4. www.isg-fi.org.uk/spip.php?article635&var_rech erche=embryo
5. My emphasis Socialist Resistance October 2007.
6. Socialist Worker May 24.
7. Socialist Worker online May 21.