The abortion rights victory opened the door for millions of women—especially working women, Blacks, Chicanas, Puerto Ricans—to begin to control their own reproductive functions, their own bodies. It went a significant way towards establishing a fundamental human right for all women—the right to choose whether or not to bear a child.

Freedom from enforced motherhood is a precondition to women’s liberation. Only with the right to control their own bodies can women begin to reassert their full human identity as productive, not only reproductive, beings….

The victory can only serve to hasten the development of a proletarian vanguard of fighting women and men capable of achieving women’s liberation and leading the American socialist revolution to victory.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) made a contribution in helping to win the abortion rights victory….  
 
Behind the Supreme Court victory
The Supreme Court decision was brought about by a combination of factors….

First, the decision was a product of the increasing disparity between the actual position of women and the possibilities provided by today’s technology and wealth for freeing women from a narrow existence of domestic drudgery….

The impact of women’s liberation ideas and the fight carried out by large numbers of women was another major factor behind the Supreme Court decision. This was manifested in the fact that the concept put forward by large numbers of women’s liberation forces—that abortion should be a woman’s right to choose—was incorporated in the Supreme Court decision.

The ruling class was also influenced by the general radicalization with its challenges to traditional attitudes and values. The rise of the Black movement, the antiwar movement, and other struggles for social change helped create an atmosphere that spurred changing views on abortion….

The rise of the women’s liberation movement helped bring about the first partial victory in the abortion rights struggle: the legalization of abortion in New York state in 1970. The excellent safety record in New York under the new law and the demonstrated demand for legal abortion helped legitimize the procedure and also made it more difficult for the ruling class to take back this limited gain women had won.

The liberalization of abortion in New York sparked a concerted drive by the anti-abortion forces which began to assume national scope. The polarization and ferment that began to mount over this question forced the ruling class to realize they would have to settle the matter one way or another.  
 
Orientation confirmed
The victory for women embodied in the Supreme Court decision confirms the orientation of the SWP of throwing its energies into the fight for the right to abortion….

Although the Supreme Court decision was handed down before either the feminist movement or the abortion rights movement had reached a stage of mobilizing large numbers of women, the work carried out as builders of the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition (WONAAC) has an important impact. Over the past several years, WONAAC has been the one women’s liberation organization that has carried out consistent activity oriented toward involving women in struggle, independent of the capitalist parties and politicians, around an issue of vital concern to masses of women. It had the correct political position on abortion as a woman’s right. It was the only women’s liberation group to continue to fight uncompromisingly for the right to abortion throughout the 1972 election period. It was the only one to answer the so-called “right-to-life” campaign in an organized manner and on a correct political basis. And it was the group that did the most to publicize, encourage, and link up with the growing international struggle for the right to abortion….

Together with other forces, the SWP and YSA helped initiate the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition in July 1971.

The initial organizing efforts, including the first national WONAAC conference, were successful in involving and inspiring hundreds of women with the perspective of united action to beat back the anti-abortion forces and participation in a struggle which could register an important victory for women. At the same time, from its very inception, a debate raged within and around WONAAC between the supporters of a mass-action approach and the sectarians and liberals who saw WONAAC as a threat to their orientation….  
 
Balance sheet of the abortion campaign
In supporting the idea of building a national abortion law repeal campaign, the SWP envisioned the potential for a movement of significant proportions around this question. In drawing the balance sheet of this campaign, we must examine WONAAC’s accomplishments, as well as discuss why no massive mobilizations on the abortion question developed.

The most dramatic proof of WONAAC’s correctness was the Supreme Court decision itself. The ruling reflected the social impact of the burgeoning women’s liberation movement as a whole. It was also affected by WONAAC’s arguments and activities. The political concept that WONAAC fought for as the axis of the abortion struggle was incorporated into the decision itself with the recognition of abortion as a woman’s right.

WONAAC’s direct achievements are impressive. It carried out the November 20, 1971 Washington demonstration, the first national action for the right to abortion. It carried out manifold activities in local areas in May 1972. The New York WONAAC demonstration held during that Abortion Action Week was the only visible protest action by the abortion rights movement to offset the nearly successful attempts by the anti-abortion forces to have the New York abortion law repealed.…

WONAAC became a subject for discussion and debate within existing women’s liberation groups including NOW [National Organization for Women], the citywide women’s liberation groups and the campus groups. Although the vicious red-baiting limited WONAAC’s ability to involve in action members of NOW and the citywide groups, an important layer was won over, and many campus groups wholeheartedly joined the WONAAC campaign.

WONAAC, however, was never able to involve in its activities significant numbers of women in addition to the activists of the women’s liberation movement. It did not become a mass movement before the Supreme Court handed down its favorable decision. The size of WONAAC’s actions were smaller than we had anticipated they would become. The reason is that we underestimated the combined impact of various obstacles to the pace of WONAAC’s development. These obstacles included:

1) The intense opposition to the national abortion campaign within sections of the women’s liberation movement, expressed, among other ways, in the virulent red-baiting of WONAAC. The initial strength of the ultralefts and liberals was greater than we had foreseen.…

2) We underestimated the strength and effectiveness of the reactionary anti-abortion forces. The struggle for the right to abortion was a new battle, and it was up against deep-seated and widespread prejudices. The well-financed and energetic anti-abortion campaign succeeded in confusing many people over the issue….

3) The abortion campaign was launched at the beginning of the 1972 election period, which extended over the first year and half of WONAAC’s existence. WONAAC was constantly under the pressure of the strong liberal forces who wanted to subordinate the abortion fight to lesser-evil support for capitalist party candidates.

4) The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam and then Nixon’s deal with Moscow and Peking against the Vietnamese, along with other factors…led to a general downturn in the antiwar movement, and radical activities on the campuses. Just as the upsurge of the general radicalization in 1968-70 had its effect in spurring on the struggle of women, the downturn affected the movement too. In retrospect we can now see that the women’s liberation movement was born at the very height of the radical upsurge of the last decade. In its struggles it was swimming upstream from the start.  
 
 
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