Radical Women Call for Armed Clinic Defense


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

source - socfem@connet80.com Sat Jan 31 03:19:06 1998

                     Radical Women--National Office
 New Valencia Hall, 1908 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, (415)
                     864-1278, (415) 864-0778 (fax)

                             PRESS STATEMENT
                            January 30, 1998


                                                  FROM:
National Radical Women
1908 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
CONTACT: Nancy Reiko Kato
(415) 864-1278 (office)
(415) 584-7097 (home)

                  RADICAL WOMEN CALLS FOR ARMED DEFENSE
                        AS ABORTION CLINIC BOMBED

        Radical Women condemns the violence that killed a guard and
critically injured a nurse in yesterdays bombing at The New Woman/All
Womens Health Care Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.  This atrocity is the
anti-abortion movements way of commemorating the recent 25th anniversary
of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in the United States: a
missile filled with nails and intended to kill. 

        Neither state nor federal governments have been effective in
stemming an escalation of the international rightwing campaign to
obliterate access to abortion through blockades, bombings, arson, and
murders and maiming of women, clinic defenders, staff, and physicians. 
Only 49 prosecutions have followed federal investigations of over 1000
incidents of clinic violence. 

        Women are under attack from other quarters, too, from government
slashing of health care and abortion funding for poor women, to so called
welfare reform.  Lack of funding and the continued violence have cut the
number of clinics and doctors willing to perform abortions. 

        So women themselves, who are not willing to be forced back into
the home and motherhood on demand and who absolutely will not return to
the days of coathangers, knitting needles, and back-ally butchers, must
refuse to be intimidated by this latest outrage and must organize marches
and rallies in voicing these demands for defense of abortion rights: 

        1)  funds provided by the federal government to pay for 24-hour
armed self-defense of clinics.  Volunteers alone cannot guarantee women
their legalright to have access to abortion as well as the other services
womens health clinics provide.  The money would pay for hiring, training,
and arming civilian guards and installing metal detectors. 

        2)  a quick and thorough investigation and prosecution of those
responsible for the Birmingham clinic bombing and murder and assault of
staff. 

        3)  free abortion on demand to any woman, including those under
the age of 18.  Congress and the courts must eradicate the mounting
state-imposed regulations such as waiting periods or spousal or parental
consent, which further restrict womens right to govern their own bodies. 

        4)  an independent, grassroots commission to investigate the
connections between the anti-abortionists and other violent
ultra-rightists and hold these people accountable for their violence
against women, gays and lesbians, Jews, radicals, and union organizers. 

        Radical Women (RW) holds both the rightwing anti-abortion movement
and the two major parties of state and national government accountable for
the clinic violence. So-called pro- lifers give aid and support to the
Klan, racists, and Nazi skinheads who bomb clinics; government drags its
heels in investigations; both Democrat and Republican parties tacitly
promote a climate of violence towards women as they combine to target poor
women on welfare. 
                                 * * * *

        A national organization, Radical Women was founded in 1967 and is
one of the oldest socialist feminist organizations in the United States. 
Radical Women was instrumental in getting abortion legalized in Washington
State through a voter referendum in 1970, has fought to uphold the Roe v.
Wade decision since its passage, has united pro-choice coalitions to
battle Advocates for Life, Operation Rescue, and innumerable other
anti-abortion groups who picket or otherwise harass womens health
clinics. 

        Women and men who want to become more involved may contact the
national office of Radical Women at 1908 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA
94103; (415)  864-1278, fax (415) 864-0778. 

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