Reorganise

The new wording of the proposed amendment to the Southern Constitution on abortion has opened a can of worms and led to vicious infighting both among the” various parties supporting an amendment and the far-right groups campaigning for it. The history of the amendment is beginning to look like an ‘Irish joke’ but like all such jokes it is not funny. Despite the confusion all the parties and far right groups remain determined to force through an amendment which would serve as a starting point for further attacks on womens rights and the rights of workers in general.

= CAPITALIST CRISIS The Irish capitalist class is in crisis and on the major issues facing it - the rebellion against imperialism in the North and the willingness of workers to resist austerity - there are no quick or easy answers. The amendment looked like such an answer. The major parties believed that the support of the Catholic Church would enable them to push it throuANTI-IMPRRIALIST FEMINISTS SHOW THRIR SUPPORT FOR THE WOMEN PRISONERS IN ARMAGH IN A NOW TRADITIONAL DEMONSTRATION ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY.

ee wt hh ~.¢ gh quickly and a victory on this issue would open the way for a general advance against democratic rights.

It hasn’t proved that easy. Not only is opposition to the , measure much greater than expected, but it has come into contradiction with other major projects of Irish capitalism. They want to build a modem capitalist economy and many elements of this are built into agreements with the EEC and link up with Fitzgerald’s determination to make a new deal with imperialism through his battered ‘crusade’ on the North. The capitalist parties need to accomodate far-right groups like the ‘pro-life’ amendment campaign (PLAC) and the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC), but they don‘t want to give them their head and risk an, obscurantist society based on the theology of the middle ages.

Fitzgerald’s new wording reflects this. While the new amendment does bend to the demand to block off access through the Courts for the repeal of the barbaric !861 Act, socialist republic Ireland:

Elsewhere:

NAMC. ceccccecces AddresSeeseeeee Countryececceces ——a . the formula shies away from a constitutional guarantee to the ‘unborn’ foetus. This meets the original demand by PLAC and SPUC but it has not satisfied them. In the heat of the momtheir plans for an offensive if the amendment is passed. Mary Kennedy of the Irish Family League wants to prevent women from going to Britain for abortions and in addition believes that ‘sexua/ morality of the criminal law’. Dr Eamon De Valera opposes the new wording because he wants to outlaw the coil, a contraceptive device currently in use by many thousands of Irish women.

TIME TO RE-ORGANISE The far-right has not been defeated and although the Government has met a great deal of opposition it is determined to proceed with areferendum. The main gain for the anti-amendment campaign is that it has won time to re-organise and build.

In the last issue of ‘Socialist Republic’ we criticised the leadership of the campaign I2 issues £4.50p I2 issues £6.50p e@eereeeereeereee for their reliance on tne opposition of Protestant Churches and lobbying prominent individuals. We pointed out the need for activists t force the pace in local action ent they have revealed some of committees. To some extent implement decisions already a result the opposition to the amendment is now much broader than the campaign. However, with more time at our disposal, we should realise that a loose collection of actic should not be outside the scope groups with no central direct- other countries. ion cannot have sufficient impact. A new attempt to bui a centralised and effective mo vement must be made.

BROADEN THE CAMPAIGN There is an urgent need for an open national conference for all activists and interested parties which would :

**Build a mass campaign on the streets , **Make a big push to get active support in the trades unions and working class districts **Press anti-imperialist organisations like Sinn Fein to transform their policy of opposition to the amendmen into activity alongside the campaign Such a conference should also this has been successful and a: taken but put on the long finger the most interesting article is the agreement to publish an organising bulletin and to establish an international tribunal which would show the links that the PLAC and SPUC have with far-right movements in This sort of movement forward would help to clarify the confused debate about the longterm aims of the campaign. It would establish that broader forces exist willing to fight to separate Church and State and demand a democratic secular society. It would give confidence to the forces fighting on questions of divorce and illegitimacy and form the broader democratic movement that feminists:meed.to bring forward their own demands, for the right to choose and an end to sexual discrimination and repression.

### FEMINIST NOTES

MARY NELLIS SPEAKS TO SPARE RIB!

The March issue of Spare Rib, the English feminist magazine once banned in the South for its coverage of the contraception issue,.contains an interview with Mary Nellis, long; perialist act- IN U-IM oh, but also about as a woman in the It makes valuable reading and along with the other internat ional material gathered for International Womens Day offers a wide scope of international feminist news. Perhaps the interview with 83-yr-old Meridel Le Sueur, lifelong socialist feminist, who survived the Depression, being blacklisted in the McCarthy era and at 83 thinks the yomens movement is ‘remarkable’.

It is well worth a read!

### BRITISH LABOUR

PROMISES ABORTION’ RIGHTS IN THE NORTH!

he next Labour Government n Britain will extend rights to abortion facilities to women n the 6 counties according o its Election Campaign document released at the end of March. It is expected that e provisions of the British 1967 Act which provide for abortion on social grounds and which at present do not pply in the North, will This limited commitment by the British Labour Party has already drawn outraged venom from the usual reactionary

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Anti-Amendment Campaign A CHANCE TO