A-Infos (en) France, CNT-AIT: Anarchosyndicalisme #186 - IVG: "recovery" operation and constitutional smokescreen... (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In the media or in the headquarters of political parties, everyone 
welcomes the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution: once again the 
Republic enlightens the World and liberates Women... ---- By this 
gesture, the The State and its servants seek above all to give 
themselves the good role and to make people forget that for more than a 
hundred years, since the infamous law of 1920 prohibiting all methods of 
contraception, they have above all been fiercely opposed to any idea of 
limiting births. , in the name of the Fatherland and Capitalism which 
needed small soldiers and small workers. All parties without exception - 
from progressive or liberal parties to conservative parties, including 
the Communist Party itself1 - actively fought AGAINST those who spread 
this idea, starting with the anarchists...

This State recognition of abortion should not lull our vigilance: as 
Solidaridad Obrera, the anarchosyndicalist newspaper of Barcelona, 
recalled in 1937, after abortion was legalized during the Spanish 
Revolution by a decree taken by the Health Councilor. - an 
anarchosyndicalist -: "Nothing is obtained by publishing laws and 
decrees in the official journals if the people do not make them their own"2.
However, the smokescreen of inclusion in the Constitution should not 
make us forget that last December, the same President of the Republic 
promulgated a decree which aimed precisely to restrict the right of 
access to IVG: this decree authorized midwives to practice instrumental 
abortion, but required the presence of four supervising doctors: a 
doctor competent in instrumental abortion, a gynecologist-obstetrician, 
an anesthetist-resuscitator and an interventional radiologist!!! In 
these times of staff shortage (the number of gynecologists actually fell 
by 52.5% between 2007 and 2020, or 1,022 fewer doctors in 13 years), 
this amounted to restricting, in fact, the capacity of these 
professionals to health to practice the act, and therefore for women to 
access it. This obstacle to access to abortion, in a context where 
demand is increasing since in 2022 nearly 232,000 abortions were 
performed compared to 216,000 in 2021, is particularly glaring in small 
centers located in medical deserts which reach already struggling to 
offer enough abortion appointments to women who wish to have an abortion.

The government's pretext for putting this restriction in place was the 
possibility of serious complications, certainly real but "which remain 
extremely rare. They are less frequent than during childbirth," as 
Caroline Combot, president of the main midwives' union, the ONSSF 
(National Trade Union Organization of Midwives), recalls.

This exaggeration on the part of the State of the risk is not trivial 
and corresponds to a long-established strategy which aims to frighten 
women wanting to have an abortion. Already in the 1900s (!!!) Paul Robin 
had described this strategy of demonizing abortion: "Undoubtedly the 
serf and servile press makes great publicity about abortion 
accidents[...]. It is a watchword of the police and politics, an old 
habit, jealously maintained, of mistreating "angel makers", of 
inveighing against "guilty mothers". If she reported with the same 
attention and the same ardor the childbirths which end in the death of 
the parturients, the press would be cluttered. The fatal accidents which 
can occur during pregnancy, during childbirth and after, are in fact 
very numerous, and obstetric treatises devote chapters to their 
enumeration, to the means of preventing and overcoming them. The 
anti-abortion "bluff" has only one goal: to prevent the people from 
benefiting from advances in medicine and surgery, to reserve the 
elimination of unwanted maternity wards for the rich.»3. We see, even 
once abortion has been recognized by law, it is still the same old 
tricks that are used...

Because the interest of the State is not that of the population. We 
cannot count on the State to protect us, and the inclusion of abortion 
in the constitution is only a maneuver to get us to relax our vigilance. 
Macron's recent call for "demographic rearmament" is a call to increase 
the birth rate and therefore attacks are to be expected from the State 
against access to contraception and particularly to abortion, while in 
the At the same time, the same State promotes access to surrogacy (GPA) 
and other technologies for commodifying bodies. We cannot count on the 
political parties to defend us either, because all without exception - 
from the extreme left to the extreme right - they are ALL for 
maintaining the cold monster of the State which oppresses us and 
prepares us at war.

The inscription in stone of the Constitution of "freedom of abortion" 
aims to make us forget that this freedom - like all the others - was 
wrested from years of struggles and confrontations without compromise, 
nor with the State. nor with political parties. And so that this freedom 
does not remain a formula engraved in cold marble, like the triptych 
"liberty equality fraternity" on the pediment of our town halls, so that 
it is not only "the freedom of the rich" and of those who will have the 
means to pay for it, it is up to us to defend the exercise of this 
freedom for all and while organizing ourselves to ensure it is 
respected. But a grassroots organization, without leader or boss, 
without compromise with Power or participation in any electoral charades 
and other institutional smokescreens.

Gabriel GIROUD, Paul Robin and abortion, L'En-Dehors, March 1937, number 
304; online: http://cnt-ait.info/2024/03/07/Paul-robin-et-lacteur

https://cntaittoulouse.lautre.net/spip.php?article1391
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