CLEVELANDERS CELEBRATE CHOICE

Over 250 women, men, and children gathered January 19 at Cleveland State University to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. The CSU Women's Alliance, CSU Pro-Choice Group, and the Reproductive Freedom Coalition sponsored the event. It was planned by the Pro-Choice Action Committee, a group recently formed to counter the active anti-choice presence in Cleveland and to provide a militant pro-choice alternative.

Pro-choice signs and banners hung proudly in the Cleveland State University Center. Various prochoice groups had set up tables, and people exchanged information and conversation. Participants

watched films representing a variety of reproductive freedom issues (safe and legal abortion is only one part of the struggle to control our bodies and lives). At 9:00 the crowd gathered to hear Valerie DePriest, President of Akron NOW, address the need to challenge current anti-choice attempts to erode women's reproductive rights, such as the infamous Akron abortion ordinance now in the courts. Valerie had been active in organizing the successful Akron pro-choice march last summer to protest that ordinance. It felt so good to see the size of the audience and realize that a revitalized pro-choice movement is growing in Cleveland!

As the next speaker, Geri Braun, a steelworker and

Refuge Center Seeks Support

Several persons have banded together to form The Greater Cleveland Refuge Center. The Refuge Center will be a facility to house, feed, counsel and in all ways help families that have become displaced from their normal living arrangements because of circumstance or circumstances beyond their control. We are a nonprofit organization founded because, in Cleveland at this time, there is absolutely no facility for families who become homeless for any reason, except fire. If a family becomes homeless because of fire, the American Red Cross will take care of the whole family. However, if a family has some other problem, such as eviction, and becomes homeless, the family must be split apart; i.e., the male aduit goes to any number of male oriented organizations, the female adult can only go to one of the two facilities (unless she has been beaten up and, in that case, she can go to the Battered Women's Shelter), and any children can be and usually are turned over to the Metzenbaum Children's Home. Then the family has to go through yet another crisis when they find out that nothing short of a court order can get the children back. It is a terrible situation,

We want this center very badly for all the families

LETTERS

I was flattered to hear several readers noticed my name missing from the WSW Collective list last month. If wimmin are reading the staff box, they must also read the contents, and that pleases me. Dear sisters, you are holding in your hands one of the very best wimmin's newspapers in the country.

No other newspaper in Cleveland told you that thousands of people demonstrated in Washington, D.C. to demand the Supreme Court rule against the lie of "reverse discrimination” in the Bakke case, or printed the truth about S.B. 1437. No other newspaper here will print letters from wimmin in prison, or articles about wimmin on strike, or tell you about the continued work by people around the danger of nuclear power plants.

No other newspaper cares to tell the public about battered wimmin, rape victims, wimmin who kill in self defense, lesbians who lose their children, wimmin who start important grassroots organizations, wimmin in non-traditional jobs, large demonstrations for the right to choose, or the wanted birth of a baby girl. Wasn't that a beautiful cover last month? Assembled by a variety of wimmin over the last six years, What She Wants has always told you as much as she could about what was happening to wimmár is Cleveland and elsewhere. What is printed depends on · our news sources (often local activists) and on the unanimous agreement of the wimmin direcsly involved. The staff was not officially a collective.until

PZBEZ/WINK She Wants/February, 1979

UMW QTG!

in the Cleveland area that until now have had no hope of staying together throughout their crises. We will be giving the adults and children counseling during the two weeks that they will be at our facility. We will also be holding workshops in budgeting, nutrition, positive motivation, etc., so that the family will never have to go through this kind of crisis again.

We are working on our proposal now and will be printing copies so that we can submit them to the proper funding organizations. We need your help in the way of suggestions, time and donations, and I am asking you to write and tell us of any ideas you may have. Thank you for your careful consideration and help. You may contact me at my home address: 3323 Wade Avenue, Apt. 3 Cleveland, Ohio 44113 961-4252

Bonnee A. Jenkins, President The Greater Cleveland Refuge Center

Ed.:Note: Bonnee Jenkins, a newcomer to Cleveland, founded two such refuge centers in San Diego, California.

we sat down together in the summer of 1977 and decided to be. That began one of the best experiences of my life. I learned a lot about writing and layout, and how to be a member of a collective. Since we decide everything by consensus, we had to agree about basics and learn new ways to work and make decisions together. We had to respect and love each other too.

Six or seven wimmin with only slight changes in (continued on page 13)

Dear What She Wants,

I enjoyed reading the interviews with Jeanne Sonville and would like to see more of that type of article.

I read the letter from the inmate from Marysville Reformatory. It was upsetting. I worked in a psychiatric hospital and they had more rights than in Marysville, and Marysville is supposed to be a place of "helping" too. I think rights should be increased. They weren't good at the psych hospital, but much better than the letter stated from Marysville.

I would be interested also in more information about what really happens at Marysville and the reformatory's side of the issues. Keep up the good work!

Claudia Widgren

member of the Pro-Choice Action Committee, reminded us that we couldn't stop with only feeling good-the right-wing movement is well-organized, well-funded, and increasingly militant. They have won important victories, like the Hyde Amendment which forbids abortions to poor women on Medicaid. They are dedicated to erasing all women's right to control their own bodies. The Pro-Choice Action Committee, she said, plans a counter-picket of the annual "memorial to the unborn" to be held January 22 at the Music Hall. "We want to show the so-called 'right-to-lifers' that their organizing won't go unchallenged and show the media that we are the majority of people in this country!"

After the speakers' program, Rita Coriell and Cindy McKay provided fine feminist music. Those who were hungry ate great food from Genesis Vegetarian. Restaurant; the artistic entered the poster contest for Monday's pro-choice picket; and the energetic ended the evening with dancing. Altogether a fine celebration!

Although threats of disruption had been received

MADAM--

IF you MUST ASK FOR THE PRIKE OF AN ABORTION, you OBVIOUSLY CAN'T AFFORD IT. COST IS NO OBJECT, IT'S ON

THE HOUSE.... NOT TO MENTION THE SENATE .

from CSU's student anti-choice group, the celebration's organizers were prepared to deal with harassment. Three or four "right-to-lifers" who showed up were refused permission to post their signs in the program area. They contented themselves with leafletting for awhile outside. As one pro-choice person commented, "It doesn't matter-they're too weak and pitiful to bother anyone."

Would that the anti-choice forces were as weak and pitiful as the CSU leafletters, that they weren't such a real threat to women's basic reproductive rights. The Pro-Choice Action Committee and other Cleveland pro-choice groups have continuing plans to organize against this threat. The Pro-Choice Action Committee's next planning meeting will be held at 8:00, Wednesday, February 7 at 1751 Radnor in Cleveland Heights. Everyone is welcome. For more information about Cleveland pro-choice activities, call Education for Freedom of Choice, Ohio at 579-2800.

-Carolyn Platt

Rhonda Toney Update

The trial in the Rhonda Toney case, which was to have begun January 8, 1979, has been postponed until some time in March.

Rhonda Toney charged Tom Baumgartner with rape in September 1978. Toney, a University of Akron student with a serious heart condition, died of a heart attack six days after the rape, which some officials describad ́as an unrelated incident. Boumgartner was indicted for her rape in November 1978.