How socialists won unions to fighting for abortion rights

Some 40,000 people marched on 21 June 1975 against plans to attack a woman’s right to choose

An overwhelming majority of people in Britain support abortion rights. This wouldn’t be the case if socialists hadn’t won an argument that abortion rights are a class issue which unions must fight for in every workplace.

In the 1970s the right organised a backlash to the 1967 Abortion Act. Religious bigots had set up the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (Spuc). And in the 1970s it was capable of mobilising tens of thousands of men and women onto the streets to oppose abortion rights.

In 1975 James White, Labour MP for Glasgow Pollok, tried to roll back the Abortion Act. His amendment brought to a head a clash between old ideas about a “woman’s role” in society and a new combativity among women workers.

The Women’s Liberation Movement, which had been fighting for equal pay, free nurseries, free contraception and abortion, had an impact on working class women.

There were key strikes by women workers, such as the Ford Dagenham sewing machinists’ fight for equal pay in 1968. The Night Cleaners’ Campaign took off in London office blocks and spread to other cities in 1970. Women clothing workers in Leeds, teachers and hospital workers all struck—and in 1973 Asian women at Mansfield Hosiery walked out against racism.

These fights took place as part of a wider wave of working class militancy, which had politicised a layer of trade union workplace reps.

But the involvement of trade unions in the fight for abortion rights wasn’t automatic. It reflected socialists’ determination to win unions to an understanding that abortion was a class issue—not some “women’s issue” peripheral to the “real business” of unions.

It was the result of socialists in the Women’s Liberation Movement orientating on working class women and the workers’ movement. They argued that the working class, as the source of profits in capitalist society, had a unique power to challenge the system. 

The International Socialists (IS)—forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party—fought for this perspective in workplaces, trade union branches and union reps’ committees.

There were factsheets and petitions, posters and stickers, speakers’ notes and trade union resolutions. Socialist Worker and Women’s Voice—the IS magazine aimed at the Women’s Liberation Movement—provided arguments, news about the campaign and ideas about how to build it.

The focus was on mobilising opposition to the James White bill on the streets and in workplaces and the unions.

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Over 700 people were at the launch of the National Abortion Campaign (Nac) in 1975. The IS built Nac and Women’s Voice groups as a vehicle for mobilising women for the abortion campaign as well as strikes.

Women in Nac and Women’s Voice groups led the confrontation with the anti-abortionists. They challenged the right of MPs, particularly Labour MPs sponsored by unions, to vote for the James White Bill.

From factory gates to bingo halls, churches to MPs’ surgeries, they put the argument for abortion rights and countered Spuc’s propaganda.

Nac agreed to organise a national demonstration on 21 June 1975 in opposition to the James White Bill. The Hull Port Shop Stewards’ Committee voted to send a delegation to it after listening to Linda Gordon, a member of the Usdaw shop workers’ union.

She explained that women were fighting for control over their own bodies in the same way that port workers were fighting to control conditions at work. She argued that if abortions were illegal then women would be in front of the same judges who had jailed the Pentonville dockers and Shrewsbury building workers.

Up and down Britain, activists made similar links between women’s right to control their own bodies and trade unionists’ struggles. This helped to win male union members over to the argument that abortion was a trade union issue.

Bigot James White

Campaigners made efforts to win support in workplaces with very few women. The Pontefract Women’s Voice group in Yorkshire, led by local doctor Jean Lewis, wrote to 40 miners’ union branches with a resolution opposing the James White Bill. Ten branches passed the resolution.

In one case, eight women addressed a 100-strong miners’ meeting and got unanimous backing. In another case, the miners’ union branch secretary had torn up three letters from the group. But they went to the meeting anyway and managed to get a rank and file miner to take in the resolution—and it passed.

Rank and file union members had to push unions to take up abortion rights and took part in energetic campaigning locally. In June, 20 junior doctors confronted the secretary of the British Medical Association (BMA) demanding a public statement opposing the James White Bill.

When he refused, they occupied BMA House all night. He agreed to issue the statement the following morning at a press conference called by the militant doctors.

Hammersmith hospital in west London had a “no abortion” policy enforced by the top gynaecologist—a member of Spuc. The Joint Shop Stewards’ Committee, alongside the local Nac group, picketed to demand a dedicated abortion unit.

Workers leafletted the Royal Free in central London for a meeting in the hospital. They found older nurses particularly responsive, with their memories of the results of backstreet abortions—when women were forced into using illegal and dangerous providers.

The orientation on the organised working class wasn’t shared by everyone in the Nac. Many tied themselves to following parliamentary procedures and working through the Labour Party.

Unfortunately, this influenced Nac’s decision not to call a further demonstration until the following March. This left the field open to Spuc which organised an anti-abortion march in October. Women’s Voice led 200 people from Nac’s conference to a counter-protest.

But the day after that demonstration, the Labour government agreed to accept all the recommendations of James White’s private members’ bill.

Cabinet minister Barbara Castle—a leading light of the Labour left—said the government would give time for a further debate. She said this would allow the re-election of a Select Committee of MPs to continue White’s work and come up with recommendations.

Nevertheless, the pro-choice demonstration on 21 June had achieved an important goal. The numbers of union banners and delegations testified to the achievement of rank and file activists in winning the argument that abortion was a class issue.

The battle against the bill wasn’t over—and activists fought to deepen links with unions. At the TUC union federation’s annual congress, Terry Marsland from the Tobacco Workers’ Union successfully moved a resolution on abortion.

One of many leaflets spreading the message against attacks on abortion in 1975

It committed the TUC to defeat the James White Bill and any other attempts at restrictions to abortion rights—and for free contraception and abortion on demand. Only about 30 delegates voted against. That was a reflection of campaigning by rank and file members on the ground.

In April 1976, the 15,000-strong march against the James White Bill included an increased number of trade council banners from across Britain.

The new Select Committee recommended a cut in the upper time limit for abortion from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. But the scale of the mobilisation meant that it was never implemented in a huge victory for the movement.

However, there were further attempts to restrict abortion rights with William Benyon’s bill in 1977 and then John Corrie’s bill in 1979.

In 1978, in anticipation of further attacks, the Nac organised a trade union conference on abortion. This followed the decision by the Women’s TUC in 1978 to campaign for abortion daycare centres. It had also called for the general council of the TUC to organise a national demonstration against any attempts to restrict the abortion law.

The Corrie Bill in 1979 would have drastically curtailed women’s access to abortion. That year, 80,000 joined the TUC march for abortion rights and helped to defeat the attack. 

Making abortion a class issue meant we defeated attacks on our right to abortion and established that trade unions had to take up women’s rights. It shows how mass campaigning can win a majority position in the working class—and that workers can use their unique power to fight oppression as well as exploitation.

We need that same spirit in all the battles for liberation today.

Stand up for choice, Abortion is healthcare. Saturday 7 September, 2pm, Parliament Square, London SW1P 3JX

Join counter-protest against the anti-choice bigots at their ‘March For Life’. Called by Abortion Rights