No compromise
On January 22, 25 years ago, abortion was made legal in the United States. On the anniversary of that important victory, feminists must confront the grim fact that, since then, the struggle for women's reproductive rights has not only made no new ground, but has retreated. The cost to women's health and well-being has been enormous.
The US Supreme Court's Roe vs Wade decision, which overrode state abortion laws and guaranteed women's "right to choose" up to the end of the first trimester, was itself a compromise, an effort to coopt a powerful women's liberation movement which was demanding an end to all laws regulating abortion.
Events since then have revealed just how much of a compromise that was, and how vital it is that the original demand be raised again.
The formal right to choose enshrined in Roe vs Wade has been whittled away bit by bit, to the point where the majority of women in the US today are unable to freely exercise that choice.
In 1977, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which took choice away from poor women by removing federal Medicaid funding for abortion, and allowing the states to do the same. Only eight US states now cover Medicaid abortion services.
In 1989, the Webster vs Reproductive Health Services ruling took choice away from young women by allowing states to require women under 18 to notify and, in some states, get the permission of at least one parent before having an abortion. The adolescent pregnancy rate in the US is now the highest of the advanced capitalist countries.
In May 1991, another Supreme Court ruling took informed choice away from women by prohibiting federally funded health clinics from discussing or even mentioning abortion. While President Clinton was forced by the feminist movement to remove this gag, the July 1, 1992, Supreme Court ruling that upheld states' right to compel women to be "counselled" and then wait for 24 hours before being granted an abortion, means that even if women can get information about the option of abortion, they are pressured not to take it up.
In Australia, feminist campaigners' efforts over many years to have all abortion laws repealed have been blocked by the Democrats and Coalition and Labor parties' refusal to support women's right to choose. Their conscience vote on abortion — and the refusal of any female politician in these parties (despite lots of promises) to take a principled stand against their leaders and introduce a private members' bill on the question — has ensured that anti-choice forces still have lots of room to move in Australian law to erode the current access to abortion.
In both the US and Australia, women's right to choose has had majority support since the second wave of feminism raised the issue in mass consciousness. But maintaining that public support, and bringing it to bear on politicians to force a complete withdrawal of governments and courts from women's private lives, depends on rebuilding a reproductive rights movement strong enough to counter the conservative momentum.
Most importantly, a renewed movement must learn from the last 25 years and give no ground on women's right to choose. It must abandon the path of compromise being taken by many liberal feminists: abortion is not a "sad necessity", or "the best of two evils", or an inherently "difficult decision".
It is the broader social context in which a woman makes her decision — whether it is supportive of her right to control her own body, or condemns and punishes her if she refuses to be a victim of biology — which largely determines how difficult the decision is.
Unless we begin to campaign publicly against the ideological backlash and the reassertion in government policy of women's traditional role in the family, this decision will become much more difficult for most women. In these conditions, the formal right to choose will not count for much.
By Lisa Macdonald