Church State and Contraception in the Six Cos

planning services are to be available to all from local health service clinics and hospitals in the North of Ireland has evoked a not unexpected reaction from the Catholic Church.

This limited step towards the realisation of the fundamental right of women to control their own bodies has brought the Church’s domination of women and the family into question. And the reaction to the new services has not only underlined the role of the church hierarchy but has exposed the contradictions in the position of the priests in the North who have come into conflict with the hierarchy on the issue of British military repression.

In the past the non-availability of adequate birth control facilities in the North has been a by-product, not of the position of the Catholic Church, but of the needs of the Unionist ideology.

Faulkner had stated his reason for excluding facilities from the North as being out of respect for the Catholic population. Such blatant hypocrisy from the man who operated internment in the 1950s and re-introduced it in 1971, cgvers tow factors in the policy.

Primarily it was as a response to the militant Protestafit supremacists who recognised that such freedoms would lead to a downgrading of the role of the family as a prop to the state structure. And secondly, it appeased the Catholic hierarchy and contributed to its coming to terms with the Northern, state structure. The state attitude to contraception made it easier for the Church to side with the state and thus act as a break on anti-unionist militancy. The results of this can be seen in the current upsurge in which the hierarchy gives unequivocal support to the forces of imperialism.

With the break-up of the Unionist monolith under the pressure of the current upsurge, the Unionist state structure has been shaken and dismantled resulting in the fact that the basis for the Orange opposition to contraception — family unity in support of state structure — has In introducing the new facilities, Paddy Devlin has taken advantage of this. But, of course, this has not been done purely out of concern for the condition of women in society. There are definite political benefits which accrue. This is a concrete benefit which has arisen out of the new Assembly, indeed one of the few real benefits it will be possible for it to come up with. The SDLP realise that the key to the pacification of the North is the selling of the Assembly to the Loyalists. In this move Devlin has brought a positive advantage to the Assembly by showing that the SDLP is free from the strait jacket of Catholic orthodoxy and that they have been integrated into the unionist structure.

The new availability of birth control facilities is, however, an attack on the Catholic Church and its right to dictate compuslory child birth and has naturally been condemned by the clergy.

Taken in abstract, the position of the church on this issue seems contradictory. The Catholic church viewed abortion as necessary if a woman's health was in danger up to the late 16th century, Then, for three years, Pope Sixtus V deemed abortion to be on a par with murder, yet the following Pope, Gregory XVI called for all penalties against abortion to be anulled. By this century the position had altered again.

Similarly, the expressed basis of the current stand is riddied with contradictions. The Church deems killing in self-defence to be justifiable, while removing a foetus, a collection of tissues without consciousness from a woman whose life it threatens, is not. And this in itself is contradictory in that three specific health conditions allow abortions to be performed, while other equally dangerous circumstances are ignored.

Again, the foetus is stated by the Church to be a human life yet crusading catholic priets, far from giving dead “humans’’, burial rites, tour Ireland with two foetii in coffee jars.

WHAT WE STAND FOR 1. The general task of the Revolutionary Marxist Group is to help to launch a 32 county revolutionary workers’ movement. We do not consider ourselves to be the basic nucleus out of which this movement will develop. We see the process as taking the form of numerous fusions in which the socialist cadre of all revolutionary groups, including both wings of the Republican movement, will come together. However we consider that as a:group we can play a vital role in helping to formulate and clarify the programmatic basis on which this movement must unite.

2. What distinguishes the RMG from other Left and revolutionary organisations is our attitude towards the national questien:

THE PLOUGH PAGES _ ING Fev — 6 ae e people in their areas, have taken positions contrary to that of their hierarchy. Father Desmond Wilson of Ballymurphy has been publicly condemned by his superiors for actions such as the querying of the role of British Army chaplains.

Fr. Denis Faul of Dungannon has perhaps been the most active of priests in condemning British Army repression and opposing internment and has frequently made his views known on the subject and demanded rights for people from his area in the face of British repression.

But it is on issues such as contraception and On the one hand the ‘economistic’ Left says that the class struggle has nothing to do with the national question because they confuse the class struggle with the economic struggle. On the other hand the pure nationalists; because they are dominated by a false ideology,.also deny that the national question has anything to do with class struggle. They want to keep class struggle in the background as far as possible.

As against these sectarian and opportunist approaches, we insist:

(i) that the working class is in fact the most exploited and oppressed section of the nation under the imperialist yoke of Britain, and that therefore it is in their objective woman? tion of imperialism. fight for Irish freedom.’

bodies.

Status. abortion that the contradictions in such positions become clearly visible. Fr. Faul demands that the women interned in Armagh jail be released — but released for what? To be released to what Connolly characterised the working class woman as ‘slave of the slave”. Slave of the capitalist working without equal pay, slave to the family, require? by the Church to bear child after child irrespective of the wishes and needs of the Fr. Faul’s sense of freedom is limited by the needs of his Church. Opposition to excessive interests to struggle against every manifesta(ii) because the working class is the most exploited and oppressed under imperialism it is the only section of the nation which can be depended upon to struggle to the bitter end against imperialism. All other classes, as we have been warned by Republican fighters from Tone to Mellowes, will betray. Only the ‘men of no property’ can be relied upon. To ignore the class struggle therefore is to compromise with imperialism, because in the words of James Connolly ‘only the Irish working class Part of a world-wide socialist movemeit remains as the incorruptible inheritor of the 3. . Finally the RMG is distinguished by its a direct threat to the domination of the Catholic Church, but opposition to sexual repression yindermines it immediately.

The moral issues are mystifications. The Church is adamant on the subject of family planning because without this code, the Church loses its hold on women and the family.

By the confinement of women to a male dominated structure as child producers, the Church can retain its authority over its members.

This factor forms an important part of the church’s part in society as a pillar of the establishment and protector of the state and status quo: the repressive interests of state and church in defending the patriarchal family structure are identical. ‘ Thus, with the creation of the Northe:

Ireland statelet the hierarchy quickly adopted the role of defender of the state. Today, the hierarchy defends the actions of Imperialism and condemns those who oppose repression. But the pressures of the Northern struggle have caused tensions within the Church itself.

Priests, more responsive to the needs ef the “Once a free service of contraception,.

abortifcients, abortion and divorce is made available for a period, it will be impossible to reverse the process as this kind of life style will be accepted by the people’’, he wrote recently. He seems to realise that that taste of freedom, of whatever form, is sweet, and that few will give up progress, to revert to -Savagery and the inability to control their own Fr. Faul is also exagerating the strength of the “‘family planning” service for the North, It will mean advice and contraception available to all women, irrespective of age and marital it is a step forward and one which must be want them and also if they have an unwanted pregnancy they must have the right to haveane—— abortion if they so wish. And in Ireland many do so wish. In 1972 nearly 1800 women travelled from Ireland to England pregnant and at least 400 of these had legal abortions. In the North, despite restrictive legislation, about 500 abortions are carried out in National Health Service hospitals annually. Because of the repressive laws the back-street abortionists are continuing to operate. These figures indicate the tip of the iceberg; i.e. the vast number of medically legitimate abortions. The women prepared to go to England for their termination illustrates the need for the wide availability of contraception and of abortion facilities in Ireland, North and South. And the dictates of celibates must not be allowed to stand in the way of the freedom of the whole population to control their own bodies.

In the North the demands must be raised through women’s liberation groups, trade unions, civil rights organisations and must be taken up by the organisations active in the anti-imperialist struggle: for the introduction ofan abortion act which will go further that the British legislation and allow for abortion on demand, and for greater fredom for women..

The need-of the 26 counties to bring secularisation to the state resulting from the pressures of the struggle in the Notth and moves towards greater North-South unity have already pushed contraception to the forefront of discussion. The liberalisation of the Northern legislation must be used as a lever to further push for a state run comprehensive national birth control service. This demand must be raised by all organisations and forces who claim to be working for the freedom of women. unyielding internationalism. The specific and social tendencies which operate internationally under capitalism. For-this reason it is impossible to understand adequately the revolutionary struggle in any single ‘country, and it is impossible for the revolutionary struggie’to win a final victory as long as international capitalism exists.

Because we believe this we are firm supporters of the Fourth International, and as such are which participates-in and ieads many i*volutionary struggles.

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