Fighting the 'moral police'

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INTERVIEW

students fight ‘Moral Police’ Ever since a campaign by the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) and other far-right groups which led tothe Hamilton judgement of 1986 it has been illegal to publish information on abortion services in the 26 counties. In one of the legal cases arising from this the judge remarked that this did not give SPUC the right to act as a moral police force. Yet itis exactly this role that SPUC tried to establish in a private prosecution of the Union of Students in Ireland (USD) for publishing this information. The recent legal decision to refer the case to the European court is in fact essentially a victory for a militant campaign of mass action by students made all the more remarkable given the capitulation of many sectors of the established feminist movement in the face of thesome threat. In an interview with MARIE BRADY, development officer for USI, Peoples Democracy looks at the reasons for their successful resistance. Q. When did the issue of abortion information arise as an issue for the student movement?

A. When the Hamilton judgment came out in December 1986 - closing the pregnancy counselling services of the womens clinics - USI started to campaign and different students unions got involved in the Defend the Clinics Campaign. It became areally solid issue and we started to discuss it at our meetings and our congresses - particularly our womens meetings and conferences.

Then last year when UCD students were taken to court for publishing abortion information it really then hit home that students unions were going to be affected by the Hamilton judgment. Q. Why do you think SPUC reacted differently to the students unions publishing the information than it did when the Clinics campaign published thousands of abortion factpacks and leaflets?

A. My own personal opinion is that they thought the students movement would back down, that there wasn’t enough support in the colleges and that the student leadership would have to withdraw. I don’t think they realised how much support the union and the student leaderships in the colleges actually had and that the ordinary students would see it as a civil rights issue separate from the pros and cons of the abortion debate.

Q. How important was the student leadership’s willingness to defy the law and goto jail, ifnecessary, in mobilising students and defeating SPUC?

A. I think it was important. SPUC then realised that we were prepared to go that far and to put ourselves on the line. Before the court case SPUC said that they wanted to see the student officers committed to prison. Then during the court case SPUC’s senior council said they didn’t want to commit the students to jail, they instead tried to go for sequestration of union funds. They realised we weren't making an empty threat. We were prepared to go to jail because we totally believed in the issue, we were following the mandate of our students unions and congresses. Yes, we were prepared to go all the way to defeat SPUC on this issue.

Q. Do you think that the failure of the womens movement to confront the issue as the students did has contributed to the decline of that movement?

A. [think possibly that we were able to mobilise much more support than the womens movement probably could have done on its own. Within the student movement the womens movement is quite strong and has a high profile. I think probably the reason the students were able to it is because we knew we had the support there and that we would be able to galvanise it, whereas the womens movement maybe thought they wouldn’t

a ee be able to get that sort of support.

Q. I myself had been involved in the Defend the Clinics campaign. Wecompiled a Declaration on the Right of Access to Information, but came up against a lot of problems in getting people to sign it - including feminists! It seemed to us that a certain amount of co-option, career feminism - call it what you will - had developed in the movement. For example, the Irish womens Guidebook and Diary stopped publishing the information. Where you able to go beyond this? A. Yes, I think so. We knew the support was there and we were able to touch that support and draw it into the campaign. We had lists of maybe 60-70 people who were willing to go to jail following the original 14 under threat. We had a conveyor belt of people who were talking about filling the prisons if they had to, of students who were willing to give out the information, whether or not they agreed with abortion.

Q.. Looking to the future. Do you think the young student activists who were in this campaign could help to re-invigorate the broader womens movement and help re-establish it as a defence organisation for womens rights?

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A. Inthe student movement as a whole we constantly have people coming in who have a new outlook on things and are constantly refreshing the whole student movement. With the womens movement within the student movement we constantly have a stream of new women coming along who are extremely passionate about their interests and rights. I have noticed some of the women coming in believe we should be fighting for equal nghts and equal opportunities, but the main core of women students would feel we're nowhere near achieving that status yet and that’s not exactly what we want. We want women not to be oppressed any more.

The majority of us would support that approach.

Q. SPUC has broadened their attack through the censorship board, For example, the magazine Cosmopolitan, under pressure from the censor, has agreed to stop publishing abortion information in Irish editions of their magazine. What's your view?

A. This definitely will have an impact but 1 would say that the European court will have the biggest impacton the whole campaign. I have every confidence that the court will find in favour of the students and that people will be able to legally distribute this information and not be taken to court by groups like SPUC again, Q. What are your plans for future activity?

Fundamentalism US-style - as crowds of bigots mobilise to blockade abortion clinics Nike this one in Atlanta

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A. We are slowing down a bit - we don’t want to bum people out. The issue is still very much a live issue in the colleges, people are still distributing the information and we're having petitions, meetings and referendums all over Ireland. We are also concentrating on our Supreme court appeal. Then there is also the National committee where political parties, trade unions and others can support us. Q. The Labour party seemed prominent in supporting the students. What was the extent of this support? A. Their support was actually quite good. They have spoken out a lot more than any of the other parties. They have done it asa party where some other TD's have done it as individuals. They have passed motions of support at branch level and we also had Emmet Stagg and Ruairi Quinn speaking for us. Q. Are the students asking them to publish the information if they can? A. We haven’t asked them to do that! I think that’s something for the Labour party to decide for itself. We certainly wouldn't demand that they do it. That's a decision they have to take for themselves.

Q. So what is your position?

A. We would suggest that groups involved in the National committee would publish the information whenever the time comes, but at the moment that doesn’tseem to be necessary. I think it would have been necessary if we had all been jailed.

Q. With magazines now afraid to carry this information will it not be more important than ever for groups other than the students to publish the information? A. Eventually I think it would be important. The campaign will nave to become a lot broader then. The students publishing the information won't be sufficient - student magazines just go within the college. Yes, | think it would be important for various other groups - a much broader spectrum to come together and start publishing the information.

CLINICS

LONDON; Raleigh Nursing home 031 222 0985 British Pregnancy Advisory service (BPAS) O31 222 0985

LIVERPOOL BPAS

035- 222-0985 DUBLIN Womens information network 797 700