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Last November, following the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, Fortress Books published an important new book by Vivien Seal, Whose Choice? Below are some comments received from readers and a brief survey by Margaret Creear of developments since. East London GP:
Whose Choice?
Available from capitalism.
World Socialist Books, 3-13 Hepscott Rd.
London E9 SHB for a special offer price of through abortion and $3.50, including postage.
Whose Choice?
Readers respond Dr Anna Livingstone, an THIS BOOK SUCCEEDS in what it tries to do. that is to situate the politics of women's reproduction within the context of socialism and provide a campaigning manual struggle.
for Militant supporters and the labour movement. Vivien Seal. while an active member of Manchester Labour Women's Council, clearly has an academic background of critical appraisal of the relationship between research and development in reproductive science and the needs of Her book, taking the controversy over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 as its starting point. discusses fertility control contraception, to infertility management, and the whole area of embryo research and prenatal screening, in the context of the aim of a woman's choice. She highlights the material obstacles. particularly for working class women. and underlines the essential nature of the fight for reproductive rights in the class The historic aspects of her book attempt to be global but are at times too vague. and the central role over the last twenty years in Britain of organisations such as the Women's Abortion and Contraception Campaign and then the National Abortion Campaign are ignored in a dismissive paragraph on page * berating single issue campaigns. She forgets the role they played on the few occasions when the labour movement mobilised around abortion rights. particularly the big anti-Corrie demonstration supported by the Women's TIC in 1980.
Politically this connects with a problem with the book as a whole. which while correctly situating fertility control within class politics. in terms of the strategy offered. presents a series of transitional demands. from a minimum wage of $150 to public ownership of the pharmaceutical industry: piggybacked rather clumsily onto specific demands about choice. child care and reproductive rights. in an ettort to tie the struggle into the work of the labour movement as a whole. And Seal describes in detail the reactionary and diffident stand of much of the Labour Party over the rears. What is good about the book is the very clear explanation of what socialist fertility control is about. Women need the right to contraception and abortion. for safe and enjoyable sex. access to prenatal screening and infertility treatment and so on. Embryo
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research is needed to improve knowledge and available care. But socialised child care arrangements, adequate housing. sate well paid employment with parental leave rights are among the prerequistes for a real right to choose. The book discusses the difference between apparent legal rights and what is really available. Tory policy has been to progressively underfund the NH$. housing and other public services. and industrial investment is in what is profitable in drugs or technologies, not what is safe or needed. Private doctors provide for the rich for and meanwhile the NH$ fails to provide women in much of the country with abortions. and there is no access to free condoms. which would prevent much infertility and disease. in GP surgeries. and in vitro fertilisation (IVF) is in most areas impossible to get on the NHS. Meanwhile arms expenditure explodes. Ms Seal is right in saying that the issue of women's rights in reproduction is a political and a class question, and as a health worker and longstanding campaigner around these rights. I hope it will bring more socialists into this struggle, and provide useful detail for use in argument. Sue Atkins:
tv It discusse • that the mother who has never been able to get over the adoption of her baby over ten of fertility are of great interest and concern to us all evervone has a tale to tell about the shortcomings of the NHS, the advertising ploys of the drug companies, of the medical profession and so on. Fertility control is this book makes a much needed contribution to fill a gap that exists in this area of reality of parenthood in Tory Britain and the need to campaign not only for legal of the difficulty of getting a mortgage, the lack of good and affordable childcare, the impact of unemployment anci poverty on family life. concern themselves with placing this subject in its would therefore see no need. apart from a moral lecture that shape our lives. Choice? has brought home to of fertility is to the overall quality of life that we as socialists struggle to improve. It deserves to be widely read. Professor Marilyn Strathern, Manchester Social Anthropology:
I HAVE JUST been reading your book Whose Choice? It is presumptuous of me to say in these issues only very in the around it balanced, humane and aspec challenging statements on the topic that I have read. like the Kim Waddington:
wife. (r the Tories base hypocrisy. After all, sex and the control treatment we get at the hands control.
therefore a very live issuc, and Whose Choice? explains the again, everyone has experience council house or of paying the Above all, this is a practical book. Many authors would not social and political context and perhaps. to point a way ahead in terms of the practical steps needed to give us real choices and control over the decisions me how important the control University Department of since 1 have become interested recently. but I did want to sav how impressed I was by your account. It is one of the most WHOSE CHOICE? HIGHLIGHTS MIR O25 showing that their concern' Summer 1991 over the sanctity of life and the rights of the embryo Whose Choice?
doesn't extend to the care of the baby once it is born. It also exposes the ideology they use to convince women of their duty to their families, which flows from how they see the family as an arm of The chapter on abortion explains how the 1967 Abortion Act decriminalised what women had been doing for centuries. However, whilst the Act was i step in the right direction, we still need the signatures of two doctors for consent which, of course. causes delays. In fact, 30% of late abortions are due to administrative delays within the NHS. Women must not be held responsible for NH$ cutbacks. In Sweden where abortion is available on request up to 18 weeks. the result is that 95% of abortions are carried out before 12 weeks. The section of the book dealing with the Embryo Act introduction of this Act in 1990 made donor children legitimate - until now the 1,700 babies born as a result of Artificial Insemination by Donor (AlD) have been illegitimate. Since the birth of Louise Brown in 1978, private sector in vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinics have flourished. In the USA surrogacy is big business, with agents receiving $10,000 a time for every surrogate mother they successfully market. But when Vivien Seal talks about every couples' right to a child, I don't think she can appreciate the anguish and despair childless women can go through. Having been a victim myself (and still am) I can understand and empathise with women who will do anything to get i baby. including trying surrogacy or trying to adopt a foreign baby. I still believe it is mainly working class women who are affected. What about all the couples who get into debt. remortgaging their houses to try and find the money in their desperate bid? What the author does show is how capitalism is prepared to exploit the most vulnerable in their drive for profits (hence
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260 MIR the baby trades etc). Summer 1991 While adoption agencies are taking a more rcalistic Whose Choice?
approach by allowing people to adopt children, the Embryo Act says "a woman may be refused treatment unless account has been taken of the welfare of the child, including the need of a child for a father."
One in ten couples are infertile yet research into the causes is drastically underfunded. Couples can wait up to four years for treatment (I waited eight) and clinics are often held in ante natal clinics! Rescarch is vital not just to try to prevent inherited diseases, but also to develop IVF programmes and try and prevent the 100,000 a year spontaneous abortions. On the whole. Whose Choice? is very informative. exposing the Tory right-wingers and Pro-Life groups and reminding us that it was the struggle of working class women that achieved better health care. abortion rights and birth control. Women have no real right to choose unless linked to decent housing. expansion of VHS and research facilities and a minimum wage — as long as poverty conditions exist there is no choice.
Margaret Creear:
EARLIER THIS YEAR.
anticipating heart casualities as the Gulf crisis intensified. Oxford Area Health Authority so ther made use of AIDS to propagate their own ideology. to whip up discrimination single dangerous propaganda. They also ensured, through cuts in family planning. the increased profitability of some private companies manufacturing One of the features of Thatcher's years as prime encouragement she gave to right wing groups to launch campaigns against the right to abortion. The continuous introduction of private members bills by MPs aligned for over ten vears the debate embryology and infertility treatment. has centred on legislation. The new time limit of 2t weeks for abortion is likely to stick for the time being.
Yet there has been an the right of women to make their own decisions evidenced in recent social attitude surveys. This reflects the greater involvement of women in the workforce and the increased self confidence they have gained as a result. Such a shift in attitudes provides the basis for an assault on the need for two doctors signatures for an abortion. a restriction which makes a mockery of the right to choose. This provision. a major factor in delays leading to late abortions. will also hamper any improvements which might be made from the imminent introduction of RI +86. the abortion pill. which is most effective before treatment is accompanied by such moralising and the granting of tree rein to consultants to excerise their personal prejudices as abortion is.
The hypocrisy of the Northern Ireland is quite staggering. In the recent abortion amendment. lan Paisley said there was no interest in abortion in the North. Yet between 1968 and 1986. 20.95" women came against gays through the use of to these groups has meant that on abortion. and more recently cnormous swing in support for seven weeks. No other medical government towards women in legal rights.
debate on Embryology and the from the North to England for an abortion, with a further +1.5+8 from the South. The government has refused to extend the 196ª Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. Yet it intends. through an Order in Council, to extend the Single Parents and Maintenance Act. Through this Act it hopes to reduce social security payments to single parents by replacing them with payments by the absent parent. usually the father. Attempts to curtail public expenditure are one of the main motives for its ceaseless attacks on single parents. Attacking single parents also allows the Tories to blame them for all the social problems which are in fact a product of the decline of their own system.
The controversy concerning so called 'virgin births' - the provision of AID (artificial insemination by donor) to some women who didn't have or wish to have male partners - is an extension of the right practised by doctors and counsellors now in relation to abortion to decide who is and isn't suitable for treatment. Their main criteria is not the wishes of the women concerned but the personal opinions and judgement of doctors. who are advised to take into account the need for a father: In effect the woman has to convince them that she conforms to what the Tories and much of the medical profession regard as socially acceptable. Such interference would be seen as outrageous it it were applied to parents in general. It is also an insult to single parents who now are responsible for the upbringing of 1t",, of children. One of the unfortunate side effects of this concentration on legislation is that it has detracted from the other key element in the right to infertility treatment. contraception and particularly abortion - the material means. the facilities to make use of The lack of mandatory provison of facilities has always been the Achilles Heel of the 196° Act. The British Pregnancy Advice Service have pointed out that it is almost impossible in some areas to
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get an NHS abortion atter 12 weeks - when increased supervision and facilities are necessary - in spite of the legal limit of 24 weeks. The number of abortions done in the NH$ has fallen. In some cases this may be due to obstruction by consultants but more generally it is the result of cuts in the NHS itself, in spite of increased demand. In other words the announcement by Oxford Area Health Authority was no more than a carrying to extremes of a policy which already dominates provision of infertility treatment - the privatisation of this area of the Today, 53% of abortions in England and Wales are carried out privately, costing women between £240 and $350. From 1985 to 1989. NHS abortions increased by 8.5%, compared with 31.4% outside the NHS. Only two regions, Yorkshire and Trent. showed a larger increase in NHS abortions. According to a senior London counsellor for the Brook Advisory Service, the cuts in the NHS mean that she is seeing increasing numbers of distressed and desperate' women. She gives the example of a 21 year-old woman, who already had four children under five and "was only just coping with living on state benefits." She had been refused an NH$ abortion because she was ten to eleven weeks Similarly a single parent with two children with special necds was also refused an abortion. She cites the case of "one woman who was told she would have to wait three weeks for an NH$ consultancy and was so distressed she attempted suicide." Women who have to pay try to find the money increasingly by not paying their rent and poll tax and. in some cases. by stealing. As if declining NHS provision was not sufficiently damaging. the first person to be retused treatment under the new opting out proposals was i woman requiring sterilisation. She was referred by her GP to Guy's hospital. London. since South East Kent Area Health Authority had a policy of not carrying out female or male IT ALTONS BILL TCOURLES sterilisation for 'social' reasons. rather than medical. Guy's agreed to do the operation but South East Kent refused to pay. The woman consequently was refused the operation. If this is extended to NH$ abortions, where women often travel outside their own health authority ared. the consequences could be very serious.
Obviously we are now approaching the situation which generations of campaigners, particularly women. thought they had an end to with the passing of the 196? Act: the re-emergence of back-street abortions and self inducement. What should be absolutely Clear now to both women's groups and the labour and trade union movement is that there is no guaranteed right to abortion when the NHS is being dismantled and starved of finances. At the same time the fact that in 198? the median age of women giving birth within marriage had risen to 2° (22 outside marriage) is a testimony to the financial hardship. the cost of housing. unemployment and the other problems which contront millions of people in Britain who would like to have children.
Whilst such issues as reproductive rights are of direct importance to women. both to protect their health and well being and to enable them to control their own lives, it is the responsibility of the labour and trade union movement to fight to defend legal rights and to ensure the facilities to make those rights realisable for working class women. Socialism does not just mean the physical control of means of production providing us with the resources to secure such facilities. It also means the dismantling of all the authoritarian structures based on the domination by one class. the minority: over the rest of us and the genuine democratisation of decision making in both industry and the welfare state, by bringing both under the control of the working class.
1988 from 3.3% to 7.7%. marriage.
parents working.
In spite of their propaganda war society is moving against the ideas of the Tories. According to the latest social trends survey: * One in four of all households were one person households in 1988 compared with one in eight in 1961. This includes a rise both amongst the elderly and the young. * In 1987 14% of dependent children lived in lone parent families, double the 1971 figures. In 1989 17% of all families with dependent children were lone parents. * The percentage of women of 18 to 49 years cohabiting doubled between 1981 and * 25% of children are born outside * 52% of families with children have both
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