John Roberts and Rosie Jimenez
From SP Boston
[edit] Statement on John Roberts and Rosie Jimenez, 28 August 2005
- Statement of the Women's Commission of the Socialist Party-USA
This Fall, while the liberals and the mainstream women's rights organizations are spending millions of dollars on a public relations campaign to block the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, those of us on the radical left will be organizing for Rosie Jimenez Day and for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, the law responsible for the death of Ms Jimenez and so many others unable to get a safe,legal abortion simply because Medicaid in their state wouldn't pay for it.
While the regressive and reprehensible actions by judges and legislators must be exposed and condemned, the primary task of socialist feminists is to challenge their underlying causes, namely: political maneuvers in the service of an economic system predicated on the economic, political, social, and sexual exploitation of women; patriarchal disrespect for women's needs and rights; increasing disregard for the separation of church and state; subservience of the "leaders" of the abortion rights movement to the Democratic Party; and the readiness of feminists to abandon militant tactics in favor of the legalistic and legislative approach advocated by NARAL and NOW.
It's up to us as socialist feminists to continually push for the rebuilding of radicalism within the abortion rights/reproductive justice movement: the radicalism that forced state legislators and eventually the Supreme Court to acknowledge the Constitutional right of women to have an abortion if they so choose. Today, we are demanding nothing less than full reproductive freedom for all women, in the context of our broader social, political, economic, and sexual rights. This is only possible by working together to create and maintain an energized, empowering, grassroots, pro-choice presence within an independent, mass movement for fundamental social change: in other words, the replacement of capitalism with democratic socialism.
No amount of pleading to "good" or "less bad" judges or legislators will get us to our goal. Involvement in the debate over Judge Roberts, other than providing an opportunity for discussion of the real issues, is just a waste of time. More than that, it helps maintain the illusion that the capitalism system will ultimately be willing to meet our basic human needs if we can just make the right deals.
This Fall while the liberals are spinning their wheels over the Roberts nomination, let's get off the defensive and take to the streets on October 3 for Rosie Jimenez Day. Vision and activism, not endless strategies of reaction to right-wing attacks, are the ways we will bring more members of our communities into a revitalized reproductive rights movement: a movement that unequivocally demands access to abortion for all women as an integral part of a nationalized system of free,high-quality health care.
- Honor the memory of Rosie Jimenez. Fight for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment.
- Stop the war on women!