Click On Title To Link To Associated Press Article On The Murder Of Kansas Abortion Provider, Dr. George Tiller. Despite many personal trials and tribulations he provided this service to Kansas women in need in the face of many legal, political and social threats. All honor to his memory. And the best way to do so is to fight, and fight hard, for the right to free abortion on demand. Forward!
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Below is a repost of an article from the Partisan Defense Committee concerning the most recent legal harassment of the late Doctor Tiller. Honor his memory.
Guest Commentary
March Is Women's History Month
This entry is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. At a time when everyone is "keeping it on the low" about President Barack Obama's retro position on abortion noted in the article Doctor Tiller, a real hero of the women's rights movement (when it counts) needs serious defense.
Free Abortion on Demand!
Defend Dr. George Tiller!
After decades of intimidation and terror, courageous abortion provider Dr. George Tiller goes on trial March 16, threatened with 19 years in prison. One of the few remaining physicians providing “late-term” abortions in the U.S., Dr. Tiller and the staff of his Wichita Women’s Health Care Services have repeatedly been targeted by anti-abortion fanatics. Tiller’s clinic was bombed in 1986, and in 1993 he survived being shot several times in an assassination attempt. Tiller faces 19 misdemeanor counts of violating the state’s law requiring two doctors, without financial or legal ties to each other, to sign off on abortions done late in pregnancy (in Kansas, the arbitrary calculus of “late-term” is set at 22 weeks). Prosecutors claim that Tiller had a financial relationship with the doctor who provided a second opinion. These bogus charges are being used to railroad a courageous doctor who puts medical science and concern for his patients above his own well-being. The labor movement and all defenders of women’s rights must stand in defense of Dr. Tiller and demand: Stop the witchhunt against George Tiller! Drop the charges!
The attack on Dr. Tiller is part of a drive, by legal and extralegal means, to intimidate abortion providers and ultimately do away with women’s right to abortion. According to papers filed by Tiller’s lawyers, the district attorney obtained under false pretenses a court order directing a Wichita hotel to turn over registration records containing patients’ names. Under the pretext of investigating “child rape,” these records were then matched with medical records that Tiller was required to submit to the state, in order to discover the names of Tiller’s patients. D.A. Phill Kline, who launched the legal crusade against Tiller, was so frenzied in his campaign against abortion clinics that the state Supreme Court in December chastised him for showing “little, if any, respect” for “the rule of law” (Topeka Capital-Journal, 6 December 2008).
Nevertheless, on February 25 the judge in the criminal case against Tiller denied a defense motion to throw out prosecution evidence and refused to dismiss the case. Noting that the charges against Tiller had been filed by Kline’s successor as attorney general, a “pro-choice” Democrat, the judge ludicrously concluded that Kline’s actions “could not have tainted the investigation and prosecution of this case” (AP, 25 February).
The law being used to go after Tiller is just one of a slew of measures which have made abortion virtually inaccessible to a large number of women in this country. This is especially true for the young, working-class and poor, who already have limited access to decent health care, childcare, affordable housing or even enough food to feed their families. Today, 36 states prohibit abortions after a specified point in pregnancy. Fully 34 states require one or both parents of young women under 18 to be notified and/or consent to an abortion. And 87 percent of U.S. counties—97 percent in nonmetropolitan areas—do not have an abortion provider.
Abortion is a politically explosive issue because it raises the question of the equality of women. This simple medical procedure provides women with some control over whether or not to have children. For this reason it is viewed as a threat to the institution of the family, which is a crucial prop for the system of capitalist exploitation. In order for safe and legal abortion to become a reality for working-class, minority and immigrant women, we call for free abortion on demand as part of free quality health care for all.
The increasing curtailment of the right to abortion reflects the policies of both the Democratic and Republican parties. As we wrote in “Drop the Charges Against Dr. George Tiller!” (WV No. 924, 7 November 2008):
“The reactionary demagogy of the Republicans is longstanding and obvious enough. But the fact is that there has been little ‘choice’ for poor women since Democrat Jimmy Carter (who now has become an international ‘human rights’ icon) signed into law in 1977 the Hyde Amendment eliminating Medicaid coverage for abortions. During Democrat Clinton’s eight years in office, welfare for mothers was axed, safe access to abortion was effectively gutted across much of the country, as the number of abortion providers plummeted 14 percent between 1992 and 1996, and a huge number of restrictive laws were passed.”
President Barack Obama provoked a hysterical uproar among anti-abortion bigots when he nominated as Health and Human Services Secretary Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, a “pro-choice” Democrat who sponsored an April 2007 event at the governor’s residence with Tiller and his clinic’s staff. Yet during the election campaign, Obama told the Christian magazine Relevant that he opposed mental health exceptions for “late-term” abortion bans because “I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother” (AP, 4 July 2008). In office, Obama stripped from his economic stimulus package a proposal to allow states to expand Medicaid coverage of contraception and other family planning services. Obama’s proposed 2010 budget has been hailed by liberals for setting aside $634 billion for health care, but the reality is that about half that sum would come from spending cuts in programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
The attacks on abortion rights are part of a campaign of social reaction aimed at regimenting the entire population—not just women, but black people, immigrants, gays and the working class as a whole. While the anti-abortion bigots call themselves “pro-life,” they enthusiastically support the racist death penalty. The U.S. has one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the industrialized world.
The fight for abortion rights, decent living conditions and free quality health care mandates that we build a revolutionary workers party. The working class has the social power necessary to mobilize in defense of not only women, but all the oppressed. But to exercise that power it is necessary to wage a political struggle against the labor bureaucracy that keeps working people tied to the Democratic Party. The elimination of the right to abortion would redound against all working people. As we have often underlined, democratic rights either go forward together or fall back separately. The working class is uniquely situated to bring capitalist rule to an end. For women’s liberation through socialist revolution!
Showing posts with label abortion. right to privacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. right to privacy. Show all posts
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, April 19, 2007
THE SUPREMES RUN AMOK
COMMENTARY
DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS-DEFEND ABORTION CLINICS-FREE ABORTION ON DEMAND!
No leftist has, or should have any illusions, particularly these days with the current composition of the United States Supreme Court, that any of our hard fought constitutional safeguards are safe from attack. The constitutionally-sanctioned right to privacy took a rather big hit on April 18, 2007 when the people in black, or I should say men in black, voted 5-4 to uphold a federally-enacted ban against so-called ‘partial-birth’ abortions passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by one George W. Bush. While we have long seen the Fourth Amendment right to security from unwarranted searches and seizures become emasculated by these closet Nazis this is the first time that the new rightist majority has taken direct aim at the right to abortion. It was not pretty and the future looks equally bleak.
In the case of the previously mentioned Fourth Amendment, however, the esteemed justices at least had the defense, as I have noted elsewhere, that they were unaware that such constitutional safeguards existed. I have it on good authority that Justice Thomas did not even know that such an amendment existed. Jusstice Scalia is aware of the amendment but believes that it only applies to writs of general assistance that were actually signed by George III or one of his royal agents. Apparently their expensive law educations did not include courses on such trivial matters. But on the question of abortion the two new Bush-appointed Supremes- Roberts and Alito- were placed on the court for no other reason than to take dead aim at the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. And they came through.
Well so much for the obvious. What is not quite so obvious and what should concern leftists who understand the need to desperately defend abortion rights is the response of the major women’s rights group the bourgeois National Organization for Women (NOW). According to a statement issued by NOW in response to the Supreme Court decision the way to beat back this latest challenge to abortion rights for all women is to elect a Congress and a President, presumably Democratic, that will overturn the federally-mandated ban. Jesus, have these people lost all political imagination. A little primer on the subject would reveal that one of the key factors in the Roe Court’s decision resulted from the pressure from the streets that women and their allies organized. That lesson apparently has been lost in the mist of time. Nevertheless we have not forgotten that tactic and we better be prepared to use it again. And while we are at it we had better dust off our old slogans. DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS! DEFEND ABORTION CLINICS! DEFEND ABORTION ON DEMAND!
DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS-DEFEND ABORTION CLINICS-FREE ABORTION ON DEMAND!
No leftist has, or should have any illusions, particularly these days with the current composition of the United States Supreme Court, that any of our hard fought constitutional safeguards are safe from attack. The constitutionally-sanctioned right to privacy took a rather big hit on April 18, 2007 when the people in black, or I should say men in black, voted 5-4 to uphold a federally-enacted ban against so-called ‘partial-birth’ abortions passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by one George W. Bush. While we have long seen the Fourth Amendment right to security from unwarranted searches and seizures become emasculated by these closet Nazis this is the first time that the new rightist majority has taken direct aim at the right to abortion. It was not pretty and the future looks equally bleak.
In the case of the previously mentioned Fourth Amendment, however, the esteemed justices at least had the defense, as I have noted elsewhere, that they were unaware that such constitutional safeguards existed. I have it on good authority that Justice Thomas did not even know that such an amendment existed. Jusstice Scalia is aware of the amendment but believes that it only applies to writs of general assistance that were actually signed by George III or one of his royal agents. Apparently their expensive law educations did not include courses on such trivial matters. But on the question of abortion the two new Bush-appointed Supremes- Roberts and Alito- were placed on the court for no other reason than to take dead aim at the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. And they came through.
Well so much for the obvious. What is not quite so obvious and what should concern leftists who understand the need to desperately defend abortion rights is the response of the major women’s rights group the bourgeois National Organization for Women (NOW). According to a statement issued by NOW in response to the Supreme Court decision the way to beat back this latest challenge to abortion rights for all women is to elect a Congress and a President, presumably Democratic, that will overturn the federally-mandated ban. Jesus, have these people lost all political imagination. A little primer on the subject would reveal that one of the key factors in the Roe Court’s decision resulted from the pressure from the streets that women and their allies organized. That lesson apparently has been lost in the mist of time. Nevertheless we have not forgotten that tactic and we better be prepared to use it again. And while we are at it we had better dust off our old slogans. DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS! DEFEND ABORTION CLINICS! DEFEND ABORTION ON DEMAND!
Monday, September 04, 2006
VOTE NO ON THE ABORTION REFERENDUM-HR 1215-IN SOUTH DAKOTA ON NOV.7TH
COMMENTARY
VOTE NO ON THIS DIRECT CHALLENGE TO ROE vs. WADE
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
NOVEMBER UPDATE: Well, the results are in and the good citizens of South Dakota have defeated HR 1215 by a fair margin. This is a small but important victory against the onslaught of the so-called 'right to life' forces. The results, at least temporarily, cuts those forces off the direct path to the United States Supreme Court that the authors of the legislation intended by its draconian provisions. However, be vigilant as these small victories are always subject to challenge in some other forum by the right-wing forces. The states are apparently still the battlegrounds for the fight to further restrict access to abortion-which means in practice poor and young women will find abortion harder to come by. Government out of the bedrooms! Defend the right to privacy! Forward to Women's Liberation.
ORIGINAL POST
This writer has spilled no little ink castigating the judicial decisions of the Neanderthals who pose as justices on the United States Supreme Court. And rightly so. And I am sure that I will have plenty of occasions to do so again. But some times these guys (and I do mean guys because at the time, in 1973, the court consisted of all men) get it at least partially right. That decision was Roe v. Wade which for all intents and purposes declared that a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion (or not) fell within her right to privacy and thus was constitutional protected against the snooping of the state. As far as that decision went in the direction of increased, if partial and reversible, democratic rights militant leftists supported the decision. And defend it today. Moreover, today we face yet another, apparently frontal, challenge to the decision this time in South Dakota. We are duty-bound to try to beat this one back as well.
Since 1973 later Supreme Court memberships have attempted to nullify abortion rights by making the scope of Roe v. Wade much more restrictive than the original court decision, generally under some compelling state interest rationale in creating more restrictive procedures. State legislatures have also contributed their ‘wisdom’ by narrowing its scope and making the procedures, especially for the most vulnerable- teenage girls and poor women, as hard and impractical as possible. To add fuel to the fire various so-called “right-to-life” groups have, at times, spent much time and effort in intimidating women at abortion clinics.
Now the South Dakota legislature has passed a law which has all the hallmarks of an openly declared war cry in order to get this issue before the Supremes again. The legislation, HR 1215, is intentionally so restrictive of the conditions under which an abortion would be legally permitted as to totally negate the right. The only stated condition that would make an abortion legal in South Dakota is if the mother’s life was in danger. Not even rape or incest cases would qualify. Thanks a lot. Christ, where the hell do these people who make such proposals come from. However, the legislation is up for a vote by the citizens of South Dakota on November 7th. This bill must be voted down.
Militant leftists must remember, or be made aware, that the political environment in 1973 when Roe. v. Wade was officially decided was a time of social protest and the awakening of the women’s liberation movement. Such protest has quite a lot to do with how the decision came down and that it was decided at all. There is a lesson for us here. The long and short of it is that every democratic gain must be defended strongly against the inevitable war to chip away those rights. A women’s right to choose falls in that category. But it is not enough to merely defend that right. To make the right real we need to insure those poor women, teenagers and others who do not have easy access to abortion clinics have that access as part of free, yes free, universal quality health care. This fact starkly comes home in the case of South Dakota where, according to news reports, there is only one abortion clinic in the whole state. Thus, the beginning of wisdom on this issue is that we need to fight to implement the socialist program. But until that time- DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS. NO ON HR 1215. FREE ABORTION ON DEMAND. FREE QUALITY UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.
THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES OF COMMENTARY ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
VOTE NO ON THIS DIRECT CHALLENGE TO ROE vs. WADE
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
NOVEMBER UPDATE: Well, the results are in and the good citizens of South Dakota have defeated HR 1215 by a fair margin. This is a small but important victory against the onslaught of the so-called 'right to life' forces. The results, at least temporarily, cuts those forces off the direct path to the United States Supreme Court that the authors of the legislation intended by its draconian provisions. However, be vigilant as these small victories are always subject to challenge in some other forum by the right-wing forces. The states are apparently still the battlegrounds for the fight to further restrict access to abortion-which means in practice poor and young women will find abortion harder to come by. Government out of the bedrooms! Defend the right to privacy! Forward to Women's Liberation.
ORIGINAL POST
This writer has spilled no little ink castigating the judicial decisions of the Neanderthals who pose as justices on the United States Supreme Court. And rightly so. And I am sure that I will have plenty of occasions to do so again. But some times these guys (and I do mean guys because at the time, in 1973, the court consisted of all men) get it at least partially right. That decision was Roe v. Wade which for all intents and purposes declared that a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion (or not) fell within her right to privacy and thus was constitutional protected against the snooping of the state. As far as that decision went in the direction of increased, if partial and reversible, democratic rights militant leftists supported the decision. And defend it today. Moreover, today we face yet another, apparently frontal, challenge to the decision this time in South Dakota. We are duty-bound to try to beat this one back as well.
Since 1973 later Supreme Court memberships have attempted to nullify abortion rights by making the scope of Roe v. Wade much more restrictive than the original court decision, generally under some compelling state interest rationale in creating more restrictive procedures. State legislatures have also contributed their ‘wisdom’ by narrowing its scope and making the procedures, especially for the most vulnerable- teenage girls and poor women, as hard and impractical as possible. To add fuel to the fire various so-called “right-to-life” groups have, at times, spent much time and effort in intimidating women at abortion clinics.
Now the South Dakota legislature has passed a law which has all the hallmarks of an openly declared war cry in order to get this issue before the Supremes again. The legislation, HR 1215, is intentionally so restrictive of the conditions under which an abortion would be legally permitted as to totally negate the right. The only stated condition that would make an abortion legal in South Dakota is if the mother’s life was in danger. Not even rape or incest cases would qualify. Thanks a lot. Christ, where the hell do these people who make such proposals come from. However, the legislation is up for a vote by the citizens of South Dakota on November 7th. This bill must be voted down.
Militant leftists must remember, or be made aware, that the political environment in 1973 when Roe. v. Wade was officially decided was a time of social protest and the awakening of the women’s liberation movement. Such protest has quite a lot to do with how the decision came down and that it was decided at all. There is a lesson for us here. The long and short of it is that every democratic gain must be defended strongly against the inevitable war to chip away those rights. A women’s right to choose falls in that category. But it is not enough to merely defend that right. To make the right real we need to insure those poor women, teenagers and others who do not have easy access to abortion clinics have that access as part of free, yes free, universal quality health care. This fact starkly comes home in the case of South Dakota where, according to news reports, there is only one abortion clinic in the whole state. Thus, the beginning of wisdom on this issue is that we need to fight to implement the socialist program. But until that time- DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS. NO ON HR 1215. FREE ABORTION ON DEMAND. FREE QUALITY UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.
THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES OF COMMENTARY ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
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