By International Workers’ Unity – Fourth International
28 June 2022
The US Supreme Court on Friday 24th overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The court ruling that enabled the right to abortion throughout the United States won 50 years ago with the struggle. From now on, the practice will remain in the hands of local legislation and where the prohibition reaches half of the states. This decision of the highest court establishes that none of our gains is won forever and that we have to fight until patriarchy and capitalism fall together.
Women, dissidents and the feminist movement have taken to the streets to repudiate the overturning of the ruling and in defence of the freedom to decide about one’s own body. The mobilisations are massive in major cities such as Washington, New York, and Los Angeles, among others.
From the International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International, we call for an international feminist mobilisation in solidarity with the women and dissidents of the United States in the face of this conservative advance that Donald Trump himself is celebrating as his triumph. We warn about the call made by President Joe Biden for women to travel to Democratic territories to end their pregnancies. It is a mockery of the demand for the right to legal, safe and free abortion, and once again the primary victims will be migrant and poor women who will not have the possibility to travel, risking clandestine and unsafe abortions.
This is a dangerous precedent for reactionary sectors to push for similar measures in other countries where abortion has been legalised. It is an affront to the rights of all women. We only trust in the strength of independent mobilisation against governments, bosses’ parties and patriarchal justice to achieve each of our demands. Rights are won and defended on the streets.
Our demands to the governments are that our right to decide about our bodies be fully respected, that abortion is legalised, that instead of paying foreign debts, resources be invested so that it is guaranteed in public hospitals and clinics to all women and pregnant women who request it, free and safe, that contraceptives be provided to all who requires it, for free, and that comprehensive sex education be provided from basic education onwards.
Not to the criminalisation of abortion!
Sex education to decide, contraceptives not to abort, legal abortion not to die!
