Vol. 73/No. 41      October 26, 2009

Twenty people attended the October 10 meeting in that city. The featured speaker was Maggie Trowe, a leader of the SWP in Iowa. Trowe had joined dozens of others in defending the Nebraska clinic of Dr. LeRoy Carhart against antiabortion protests in August.

She pointed to the twin attacks on undocumented workers and women’s rights in President Barack Obama’s health-care proposal to Congress. It would deny coverage to undocumented and other immigrant workers, and prohibit any federal funding for abortion.

Trowe said that the rulers have made clear what their recovery will look like to workers and have given the green light to rightists and others to intensify their assaults. She noted that the Obama administration’s new face of immigration reform is marked by increased arrests, deportations, and firings through no-match letters, and bringing felony charges of forgery and identity theft against workers without papers.

The right of women to choose abortion “goes to the heart of the conditions necessary for women to participate fully in the workplace and society,” stated Trowe. “There can be no compromise on the right to abortion. The right to abortion is an unconditional, fundamental prerequisite of women’s liberation.”

As the third week of the eight-week fund ended, a stepped-up effort is needed to get the pledges to equal the $95,000 goal. There is a $3,300 gap between the total of the local quotas pledged and the national goal. The fund helps continue the work of building a revolutionary party in the United States, one that aims to help lead the working class to take power out of the hands of the rulers and to use it to organize society in the interest of the world’s toilers.

In Boston fund supporters came together for an evening of calling to line up further pledges and invite people to an October 18 fund meeting. The meeting will feature Ma’mud Shirvani speaking on the fight for democratic rights in Iran today, and the need to oppose Washington’s attacks on that country. The calls were also to invite people to join in a march and rally against the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq on October 17 at Copley Square in Boston.

In Los Angeles fund supporters will hold a discussion of the introduction to a soon-to-be-published book titled Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power, reports James Harris. This should provide a chance to collect more on pledges already made, get some raises of the pledges, and win some new contributions to the fund, he said.

Contributions to the fund can be sent to 306 W. 37th Street, 10th floor, New York, NY 10018. Checks and money orders should be written out to the Socialist Workers Party.

Natalie Morrison contributed to this article.

Party-building fund: Week 3 of 8 (chart)