Keep abortion legal in Victoria!
Drop the Cairns abortion charges!
On October 9 this year, the Right to Life will mark two years since the legalisation of abortion in Victoria by holding a “March for the Babies” as part of a campaign to recriminalise abortion.
...A war on abortion rights is raging across the world, as a global ultra-reactionary movement demands that governments dictate what women can and can’t do with their bodies. But it doesn’t stop there. The far right is also out to repress immigrants, Indigenous peoples, sexual minorities and workers as well as women. Above all, they want to control women’s reproductive capacity in order to make it as difficult as possible for them to act as leaders in the struggle for a safe, just and equal world.
In Australia, they are targeting Victoria and Queensland. The Catholic Church has launched a legal challenge in Victoria, claiming an entitlement of conscientious objection for anti-abortion health professionals who are now legally required to refer a woman seeking an abortion to a provider and, in the case of an emergency, to assist in a termination.
It’s no coincidence that six months after Victoria’s legalisation of abortion, the Queensland Police charged a 19-year-old woman and her partner for procuring an abortion under the state’s 19th century criminal code. She is the first woman in the country to be prosecuted under anti-abortion statutes. If convicted, the pair faces years in jail, and the case could set a very dangerous precedent. This is because the police are arguing that intent to procure a miscarriage is all that is needed for a conviction, regardless of an actual pregnancy or an actual miscarriage.
The trial is set for October 12 in Cairns, and pro-choice rallies across the country on October 9 will demand that the charges be dropped. In Victoria, the demand to keep abortion legal will be added to this.
Ninety percent of the Australian population believes that women should have the right to choose abortion. But we also need to link abortion rights to all other factors that make choice for women truly attainable: childcare, health services, housing, education and training, jobs, equal pay, unrestricted access to contraception and an end to all forms of discrimination.
Starting on October 9, we can stop these women-haters by fighting back and demanding:
* free, safe, unrestricted abortion on demand for all women, throughout Australia
* drop the prosecution against the Cairns couple
* stop the removal of Indigenous children into foster care; stop the genocidal detention and deaths in custody of Indigenous people
* stop the forced sterilisation of women with disabilities
* access to quality health services for women in remote and regional communities
* end employers’ bullying of immigrant women on temporary work visas — no forced abortions
* free access to reproductive technology for all women, including lesbians and single women
* free, quality 24-hour childcare
* jobs with equal pay and parental leave at full wages, paid by employers
* access to free, safe contraception for women of all ages
* universal, non-moralistic sex education in all schools
* guaranteed social services, free education and training
This is a callout to all who want to be involved in organising Melbourne’s National Day of Action around these demands and make it huge, diverse and powerful!
Meetings will be on alternate Thursdays, 6.30 pm, starting August 5
at Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick.
(Take Tram #19 to Blyth or Stewart Street stops or the Upfield train to Anstey station; plenty of parking off Staley Street)
For more information or to endorse the rally, contact Radical Women
03-9388-0062 or radicalwomen@optusnet.com.au
You can also support this action by donating toward the organising costs. Please send cheques to: Radical Women, PO Box 308, Brunswick Vic 3056.
THIS NDA IS INITIATED BY:
Pro-Choice Action Collective (Brisbane)
Women’s Abortion Action Campaign (Sydney)
Radical Women (Melbourne)
Supported by:
Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Association
Brisbane Rape and Incest Survivors Support Centre
Campaign for Women’s Reproductive Rights (Melbourne)
Children by Choice
Communist League
“F” Conference, Sydney (April 10-11, 2010)
Freedom Socialist Party
Greenslopes Day Surgery
Network of Women Students Australia
Queensland Council for Civil Liberties
QUT Women’s Collective
Revolutionary Socialist Party
Solidarity
Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA)
Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights
Women’s House Shelta
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