War on Women’s Reproductive Rights in Louisiana

By Sally Jane Black

The assault on reproductive rights continues. In the last month, Louisiana law-makers have passed a law restricting abortion access, making it a crime for anyone to provide an abortion to someone after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions made for cases of either rape or incest. This law will endanger lives, prevent many women from receiving the care they need, and reinforces rigid ideas of womanhood that only benefit the ruling class.

Democrats Betray the Working Class
Instead of fighting against these attacks, the Democratic Party wrote, sponsored, voted for, and signed them into law. Despite their undeserved reputation of being the more progressive party, they have struck a blow against reproductive rights in Louisiana by passing the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. These laws serve only the interests of the capitalist class (including organizations like the Koch Brothers’ ALEC) that fund their election campaigns. Their motivations are not to defend family values, religious rights, or their own morals, but to opportunistically profit off of women’s suffering.

The Courts Will Not Save Us
The law closely matches one passed in Mississippi which has been taken to court, and it has been tied to that law’s fate in the courts. In Arkansas, a law was recently (passively) upheld in the courts that prevents doctors from providing medical abortions (as opposed to surgical) without a contract with another physician with hospital-admitting privileges. Medical abortions are known to be safer than surgical ones, and it has been shown that hospital-admitting privileges do not noticeably improve the safety of those receiving these pills. The law has shutdown almost all of the abortion clinics in the state. The court system has backed these laws without regard for the consequences to people in need of abortion services, especially poor, working class women.

We Must Fight Back
The legalization of abortion 45 years ago was won not because of the compassion of the unelected tyrants on the Supreme Court, but because of constant struggle from women and progressives in this country fighting for our liberation. The fight against the ruling class’s goal to control our bodies was a mass movement that we must reignite to protect what we have won and further our liberation today.

Workers Voice Socialist Movement

We are workers, employed and unemployed, youth, students, and seniors. We are multi-racial and multi-national and organize for the unity of the working class. We are funded by and for workers, for the liberation of all workers and oppressed people.

We organize for jobs and higher wages, against racism, women’s, and LGBTQ oppression, and for solidarity with immigrants. We organize for community schools, lower rents, and food on our tables. We organize for workers’ power so that everything will one day be removed from the capitalists’ private ownership.

We oppose the Pentagon, which is looting our tax dollars and handing them over to war-profiteering private companies, while social programs are gutted. We oppose war for empire which is pursued only to lower our wages and plunder the world’s resources while destroying the environment. We reject the monopoly media who feed us lie after lie.

The labor of workers produces enormous wealth here in Louisiana, the U.S. and the world– so much wealth that everyone could have housing, meaningful jobs, education, healthcare, and genuine equality. But this wealth is stolen and privately owned by the capitalist class for their greed and profit. We believe that we, the workers of the world, can unite in revolution to overcome capitalism and build a better world.

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