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EDITORIAL
By Jean Loria
On May 18, women's right to abortion in Italy was reaffirmed by a popular vote of 2 to 1. Even Catholic strongholds in the south gave a resounding "no" to repeal of the 1978 abortion legislation. Considered one of the most progressive in Western Europe, the Italian law, man-
News
National
Family Protection Act.....
dates free abortions for women 18 and older during the first trimester. There have been an estimated 400,000 legal abor-" tions since its enactment.
Pope John Paul 11, as expected, led the campaign for repeal, preaching platitudes on the sins of the flesh and the duty of motherhood. His vigorous efforts again irked Italians, who in 1973 turned their backs on papal strictures by voting to maintain the liberal divorce law. The 1978 parliamentary decision to legalize abortion was a more overt message to the regal robes to stay out of politics. The senseless attempt on the Pope's life, typically exaggerated
CONTENTS
Zap Brigade: An Act of Civil Disobdience............4 Local
Features
Vol. 9, no. 1
Elizabeth Cotten: Woman Extraordinaire..).
..6
..5
Cloning.....
.7
Letters.....
....2
Find It Fastest........
...back cover
Classified Ads........ What's Happening...
......11
Cuyahoga County Support Awards....................3 First Annual Working Women's Convention........2 Local Women Organize Against Pornography....2 Rape Crisis Centers: A Crisis in Funding..............2 Women's Ordination Conference......
...3
Cover Photograph of Elizabeth Cotten by M. B. Camp (see article on p. 6)
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by the mainstream media to a nauseating degree of sentimentality, generated appropriate sympathy but not the hoped-for Catholic victory.
The lesson we can learn from the outcome of the Italian referendum is separate from the legislation itself. Although the law provides free abortions on demand, the fact that a woman must first plead her case before a tribunal or wait seven days if her "request" is denied would be unacceptable to the pro-choice forces in this country. What is noteworthy, however, is that in a country historically threatened by church/state conflict and in the face of a complicating and emotionally exaggerated tragedy, women (and concerned men) grasped the facts and voted in their own self-interest.
In the U.S., unfortunately, we can hardly claim such political sophistication. In a country where such events as the hostage "crisis" and the assassination attempt on Reagan are used to influence political events, it is not surprising that the abortion issue is strangling in a web of antiintellectual emotionalism. Nowhere is this more evident than on the floor of Congress.
In April, Senator John East (R-N.C.), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, discredited himself and his colleagues by conducting the most one-sided hearings on a constitutional issue in memory (Village Voice, April 29-May 5, 1981). He was attempting to establish "scientifically" that life begins at conception, his ultimate goal being passage of S.158, a bill sponsored by Right-to-Life favorite Senator Helms. Targeting the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling on women's right to abortion, victory for S. 158 would reverse this right by extending the 14th Amendment to protect a fetus from the moment of conception.
Reason would have dictated that one congressional hearing is inadequate to settle the age-old question of life before birth. East, however, righteously plowed ahead, not only ruling that the word "abortion" could not be mentioned during the hearings, but also bringing on seven of eight witnesses committed to his own anti-abortion bias, hoping, perhaps, to sway public opinion by bull-headedness and simple-minded repetition.
The nature of a congressional hearing is to promote public dialogue. Yet the people most affected by S.158-women-were not ever invited to testify, although six courageous women voiced their opposition from the sidelines and were subsequently charged with contempt of Congress (see article, page 4). East's outrageous orchestration of the hearings alienated both Republicans and Democrats alike, evidenced by the fact that not a single subcommittee member attended.
A similar fiasco occurred in the Ohio Legislature which last month conducted hearings on H.B. 92. H.B. 92, the "Anti-Abortion Bill," required that minors obtain parental or court consent, that physicians inform women of the consequences of abortion, and instituted a 48-hour waiting period before an abortion is performed (see WSW, May 1981).
Midway through the hearings, the legislative process was abruptly halted due to perceived breaches of protocol. It seems that the full State Government Committee took testimony before the subcommittee finished, and sponsor Ken Rocco made a late entrance with major amendments. The miffed subcommittee responded by tabling the bill, which, in effect, meant a pro-choice victory by default.
To feminists, these recent events in Washington and Ohio offer a welcome respite from the downward-spiraling reproductive rights trend. On a serious note, they are symptomatic of the general "hysteria" being initiated by the Right (with some inadvertent help from the Left), tuned to a fine pitch by the media, and played out on the legislative floor. Unfortunately, we cannot count on the Right-to-Life forces to continue their self-defeating tactics. We must remain vigilant, and, where possible, we must influence, direct, and control legislation. But to expect justice in a system so unresponsive to women's fundamental right. to self-determination is politically naive. We should be exploring contingency plans now-plans such as grassroots organizing of alternatives to legal abortions, including training ourselves to perform menstrual extractions and setting up a network of physicians willing to challenge the * system.
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June, 1981/What She Wants/Page_1