North Staffs Women’s Action Group – part 2

INTRODUCTION

In 1967 abortion was made legal in the UK. This was challenged several times by anti-choice (pro-life) organisations like the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) led by Phyllis Bowman. Abortion became a ‘live’ debate across the country and many women’s groups spent a lot of time and energy protecting a woman’s right to abortion. We held meetings, lobbied MPs, went on local radio, wrote letters to the local paper and went on demonstrations. NSWA had a theatre group that performed a short play/skit, based on Punch and Judy, defending a woman’s right to abortion.

I vividly remember marching down Oxford Street past a big Mothercare shop. The shop was guarded by a cordon of police! They obviously assumed pro-abortion equals anti-mothers.

On the 27th April 1978, SPUC held a White Flower Ball to, they said, commemorate the deaths of one and a quarter million foetuses since the inception of the 1967 Abortion Act which legalised abortion, with restrictions, up to 24 weeks.

The following is an article written at the time to report on our action.

WOMEN’S ACTION GROUP NEWSLETTER, NUMBER 10, APRIL 1978

 SPUC AT TIFFANIES – A WHITE FLOWER BALL

Held on the 27th April, to commemorate the deaths of one and a quarter million foetuses since the inception of the 1967 Act.  Outside Tiff’s, a 35 strong picket of women’s group members plus individual members (both sexes) of the Labour Party, SWP, CP, and Gordon Astley from Radio Stoke stuck with us for two and a half hours. Hil and Sheila masqueraded as ugly sisters.

We argued with The Rigger, and leafletted the Tiff’s bouncers as well as the 150-odd revellers going to the ball. At the same time we attempted to speak to them, to discover if they knew that half proceeds were going to SPUC despite publicity that the other half would go towards the cost of foetal heart monitoring machines for the North Staffs Hospital. We also attempted to discuss their views on abortion.

Most of those willing to speak to us were SPUC supporters. Many wouldn’t stop to talk. The feeling between Hil and Sheila was that quite a few people had come for the dance and didn’t know why we were outside at all.

Of those couples who stopped to talk it was usually the man who did the talking:-

SPUC man: “Abortion is wrong…….totally…….it’s life.”

Question: “What about the woman’s life?”

SPUC man: No answer.

2^nd SPUC man: “SPUC is not trying to legislate for the women’s position but to protect the life of children”

Some of the men were really aggressive. The picket was very far from being intimidation but one of our number was punched in the stomach; several were threatened by men going in.

“I wish there was a healthier attitude to the sanctity of human life” said the National Director of SPUC. When questioned about the sanctity of life of the 100,000 women a year who get abortions, the National Chairman said:

“There is better ways of dealing with the problem…. eg. To have children with dignity”.

Meanwhile, inside Tiffanies, two women were selling white flowers and handing out leaflets, albeit, reluctantly.

THE LEAFLETS  were the standard SPUC pre-election campaign one entitled :

Make Your Vote Count for those with no Voice and no Vote.

Extracts read:-

“…by our silence we let the child on the front of this leaflet (blow-up of 20 week-old foetus) be killed by abortion because HE was inconvenient. Last year over 130,000 unborn children were condemned to the incinerator for social expedience…..

Higher family allowances, more support for poor families and for unmarried mothers, an end to the stigma of illegitimacy and no discrimination against the handicapped – we stand for all these things…

We oppose the exploiters who amass vast fortunes from the abortion business – those so-called reformers who sweep social problems under the carpet with abortion, and those who de-humanise society by diminishing the value of human life, thus helping to cultivate the euthanasia mentality…”

The picket ended at 10:30, not before Gill Gill had got the youngest of the Tiffs bouncers to agree with our stand.

There was a short report in the Sentinel, and on the Radio Stoke morning show, next day.

My own summing up of the experience would be that it brought home to us just how un-compromising are SPUC, as opposed to the sugar-coated tones of their puppets, Benyon and Brain. Both these MPs introduced their anti-abortion bills as measures to facilitate the effective working of the 67 Abortion Act. Yet they are both SPUC supporters. Those bills were intended to thwart women’s chances of getting their abortions in time. BPAS was right to talk of the abortion obstacle race – it was a SPUC invention and it’s no bureaucratic accident.

I think too that our first encounter emphasises that if we do want to take on SPUC in public again we really need to know their arguments, and how to counter them, before they get the opportunity to turn our hesitation to their advantage in a radio confrontation, for example. Although the leaflet quoted above may be dismissed as the views of emotive, illogical and socially naïve cranks, the arguments in it reflect the kind of religious bigotry and patriarchal attitudes which oppress all women. SPUC tramples underfoot everything the Women’s Liberation Movement stands for. We really need to oppose them in public effectively. To this end we’ll be reviewing SPUC arguments when we meet on Thursday 8^th June to discuss the anti-SPUC campaign in the pre-election period.

Hope you will come along that evening.

With love

Gill Os.

Protesting Tory Attacks on Women

It is with sadness that we have to tell you that Ann Lovatt, the writer of the following report, died over 20 years ago. She would be ’tickled pink’ to know her articles were still being read.

WOMEN IN STRUGGLE, Issue No 1 June 1981

FESTIVAL AGAINST TORY ATTACKS ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS

The following report has been written to prove the North Staffs feminists are alive, well and travelling.

Kath, Lynn and I went to London on cup final day; our destination, Islington, and the Festival Against Tory Attacks on Women’s Rights. Clutching our A – Z’s we battled our way through North London, arguing about whose fault it was that we were lost.

The first thing we noticed was that everybody at the conference who didn’t come from Stoke had hair of various and wonderful hues, and at least half of these played the saxophone. After these initial feelings of dullness and inadequacy we rapidly cheered up at the sight of so many women (and quite a few men) (a) being positive and (b) having a good time.

The festival offered amusement and stimulation for all stages of exhaustion; ours was quite advanced after a 5:30 start from Stoke. In the main hall various women’s organisations (Spare Rib, Trade Unions, CISSY and many more) ran stalls which continued all day, providing a welcome place to browse in between going to workshops and queuing for cups of tea. Spare Rib sold badges and postcards and provided information; photographers and artists displayed their work and several bookstalls did a good trade, Particularly attractive to some of us was the second-hand bookstall of feminist lit. “Our pockets were empty, but our rucksacks were full.”

Another ongoing event was the films which seemed to attract people all day long …….though none of us actually made it there.

If I was to make one criticism of the festival from a purely selfish point of view it would be this; there was so much going on simultaneously that it was almost impossible to make a choice and often the easiest and the most pleasant thing to do was to sit and listen to the succession of wonderful women’s bands which played throughout the afternoon. For this I make no apologies.

Kath and I spent the morning watching the Women’s Theatre Group perform their nuclear power play while Lynn was depressed at a workshop on pornography. Hoping for some real live action, and in particular a response to the news of the Topless Miss GB circus at Jollees, she came away feeling sad at the apparent inability of the group to decide on any sort of action.

Later on we sat with Pat Arrowsmith, waiting for the disabled lesbians to vacate the room in which her poetry reading was scheduled to take place. What a wonderful lady! What a delightful sense of humour! She read poems from her new, anti-nuclear booklet, and also from her earlier work “Breakout”, an anthology of poems written in prison.

The afternoon ended with a rousing rally in the playground, addressed by several women activists and Jo Richardson MP. Just how heartening it had been to spend a day in (relative) solidarity with lots of women was brought home to us as we ploughed our way through Islington market, treading warily around squashed fruit and legless Spurs supporters.

Ann

NSWAG wrote and performed several plays.

Below is a review of what was probably the most ambitious play.

RED CIRCLE THEATRE GROUP

PAY FOR TODAY

On June 19th, Red Circle put on their very first performance of their play, Pay for Today. For anyone who doesn’t know, Red Circle is the theatre group of Stoke Women’s Action, and Pay for Today is a play written by them about the two jobs that women have at home and at work, and the struggle to get more women involved in unions and more unions involved in issues that concern women. If you didn’t see the play you missed something really good. Everyone concerned had obviously put in a lot of thought and hard work.

Sheila was devastating as the 18 year old bride-to-be who wouldn’t let you forget that her name was Carole with an ‘e’. Barbara played her fiancé, Frank, an aspiring young worker who has to leave the pub early to discuss getting a mortgage with Carole – obviously the type to do everything sensibly! Gill G. as Reg, the very sympathetic union man who kept shouting for his tea, and then had to eat the cold sausages and brown sauce which his wife served up, while Shirley tells him that he can cook the tea if it will help him to remember his boy scout days when he was such a good cook.

Nobody will mind if I say that the character I remember best is Shirley played by Cath. Shirley is a down to earth woman with a crushing sense of humour and she is central to the play because from her come its main points. Cath played the part very straight, unlike the other characters, who were stereotypes. Not the one you’d meet every day but perhaps every other day! The contrast between Shirley and the other characters could, I think, be made even clearer by the stereotyped characters sending themselves up more.

‘Josiah Wedgwood’s Body’ is a really great song, I hope everyone stands up next time – it’s a pity to miss the accompanying actions because the person in front has a big head. Music provided by Percy and the Penguins was very good. Foo’s fantastic voice was a lovely surprise. The last number ‘Bread and Roses’ was a real lump in the throat and tingle in the fingertips song and was a really effective ending, with everyone gradually coming together to sing. More references in the play to ‘roses’ would sum up its message even more.

Altogether, it was a very enjoyable evening and it was good to see the people I know performing a play about the things we all care about and are fighting for.

A lot of time and energy went into defending the right to abortion enshrined in the 1967 Abortion Act. SPUC (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children – led by Phyllis) were very active and NSWAG tried to hinder their activities whenever we could.

From December 1978 newsletter

CONTRIBUTION FROM ANN

The Continuing Saga of SPUC…… and the 14 brave women who successfully wrecked the Phyllis Bowman travelling circus……..

It seems ages now since that chilly night in September when some of us from Stoke and Crewe picketed an anti-abortion meeting at Highfield Methodist Church in Crewe. Armed with banners and placards and our repertoire of noisy songs (“What Shall We do With Phyllis Bowman” etc.) we greeted the arriving horde of nuns, vicars and other folk with vested interest in the abortion stakes, handing them leaflets (which most refused to accept) and generally hindering their entrance into the hall.

Somebody sensibly suggested that it would be warmer inside, so we trooped in. From our vantage point in the foyer we could see the 50 odd (no pun intended, sisters) people waiting for the film to start. Encouraged by the thought that they might just be waiting for us to depart, we decided to go right inside and deposited ourselves – placards and all – at the back of the hall.

Michael Minford, the area organiser, came scuttling up to us and said we were welcome to stay provided we shut up —- . They rolled the film —- opening shot of smiling contented mum and gurgling baby —. We started up a barrage of chanting, foot stamping and placard thumping. Our Phyllis stopped the film and scuttled toward us. We refused at first to engage her in conversation – (SPUC say they won’t engage with slogans, so why should we argue with bigotry?) She exited, obviously to phone the police. We stood our ground, making a dreadful noise – who’s for the one woman band next time? Various SPUC-ites gingerly approached, trying to make us see reason. Phyllis produced the trump card of the evening when she led the audience in a bout of slow hand-clapping. While they disrupted their own meeting, we rested our voices.

Not until we had been in the hall for an hour did two small and timid policemen arrive. (They’d all been at the football match.)

“Who’s the leader?” said one.

“We haven’t got one” we chorused.

They asked us to leave. Not fancying a night in the cells, we picked up our banners and exited, still singing, high on our success.

IT’S EASY TO FUCK SPUCK – all you need is a loud voice and a bit of determination.

Ann

(Apologies for the non-appearance of this report in the last newsletter.)

In the same issue – various people wrote funny things about themselves:

I’m nearly 18, a contented mother of one. I used to be into religion and horses, now I’m working on my 2nd book ‘Great Duplicating Disasters I have Known’, following my successful literary debut ‘Great Jumble Sales of the World’. When I grow up I would like to be a policeman or a fly poster-er or run a cat’s home with Gill Gill and other funny people.

Ann Lovatt