The Lesson of Boston:

We Must Rely on Ourselves, Fight for Abortion Rights, & Stop the Anti-Women Thugs!

by Refuse & Resist!

The recent murder of abortion clinic workers in Boston and the shooting up of a clinic in Norfolk demonstrate once again that we cannot look to courts, cops, and politicians to protect women's rights. We have to cast away illusions, and deal with reality. Women and men across the country have to thunder our outrage, organize a real defense of the clinics, and go on a new footing against the forces of misogyny. We ourselves have to create both a political climate and a practical situation where it is impossible for the Christian fascists to wage their attacks on women and their clinics. No one is going to do this for us.

More clinic workers have been killed since the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law went into effect than before. But then what should we expect when President Clinton goes to the National Baptist Convention and says: "far too many young women are having abortions" and urged "Blacks and whites to adopt a new and less tolerant attitude toward illegitimacy, abortion and single parenthood." The climate is promoted by politicians of both parties, who compete with one another over who will execute the most prisoners and be the toughest on pregnant teenagers.

Bejeweled bishops will tisk-tisk about the killings but continue inciting the stormtroops with homilies labeling abortion as murder. Newspapers will decry the killings, then report the calls for the murder of abortion doctors as "a theological debate on justifiable homicide." The Attorney-General will "sympathize" but declare that resources are too thin to protect all the clinics - only missile bases, banks, and concentration camps for immigrants can be guarded.

The plain truth is: the political campaign against abortion in this country is part of a much larger right wing agenda directly aided by government. Cloaked as a grassroots religious movement, this campaign against women's basic rights has served to recruit for a far larger social agenda that is steeped in patriarchy, European-Christian identity, repressive social conformity, capital punishment, and throwing the poor to the tender mercies of compassionless market economy. From the anti-abortion campaign people are led to a "contract on America" mentality, and ultimately into the armed "Christian constitutionalist" militias. In a word, it is a fascist movement.

In fact, the whole scene is hauntingly reminiscent of Germany in 1932, just before the Nazis came to power. Those who cried out to organize mass resistance were labeled as extremists. Conventional wisdom held that the proper course of action was not to antagonize the conservative middle class, to depend on the police to protect synagogues from Nazi thugs, and to seek "reconciliation." It was a formula for disaster then, and it is a formula for disaster today.

It's time for a new program:

1. Mass militant clinic defense is the order of the day. No one should be allowed to harass clients, and people blocking access should be physically removed. Women's clinics should be made "fascist free zones."
2. Abortion providers must be defended. Self-defense is our right and our responsibility. We must create a climate where the anti-women goons are the ones afraid to show up at women's clinics.
3. Actively express your support and appreciation for doctors and clinic workers who continue to staff the clinics and make it possible for women to control their own lives. Assist them in every way to organize their protection.
4. Hold mass demonstrations in the event of any more attacks on women's clinics. Call on prominent figures such as writers, artists, scientists, and other public figures to make public statements denouncing the attacks.
5. Organize demonstrations against each and every manifestation of the attack on women's rights. Politicians, clerics, and other bozos who call for patriarchal control over women deserve to be interrupted, shouted down, and run off.
6. Call on doctors and medical students to seek training in abortion services and step forward as new providers.
7. Expose the connections between the sanctimonious charlatans of the anti-abortion campaign and right wing, racist, and police groups. Hold educational forums, call talk shows, write to newspapers, put up flyers, wear buttons.
8. Document the anti-abortion forces by collecting their photographs, license numbers, contacts with police, regular meeting places, financial sources, etc.
9. Take security seriously. Organize in small groups and don't allow police or antis into your meetings. Keep records safe. Deal openly with questions about individuals and don't spread rumors.
10. Build cooperation between all the forces working to protect women's rights, recognizing that different people will contribute in different ways. We can debate the road forward as we stand shoulder to shoulder.

Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!
Defend Abortion Providers by Any Means Necessary!
Build a Movement that Relies on Ourselves!

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