Women's right to choose on trial ON OCTOBER 4, 51 women and men will face trial in Ghent, Belgium, for the 'crime' of giving, procuring or having an abortion. The trial follows a police raid of a clinic in the town, in the Flemish-speaking part of the country and is part and parcel of a renewed attack on a woman's right to choose. We spoke to Marijke Colle, one of those accused and a long time fighter for abortion rights. Marijke is a member of the Belgian Socialist Workers Party (POS/SAP), Belgian section of the Fourth International, who are mounting a campaign in defence of those accused and abortion.
Question. What is the current legal situation in Belgium with regards to women's right to abortion?
Answer. Abortion is illegal according to a law dating from 1867. It is seen as a crime against the family and the moral order so it is not, for example, characterised as murder and it is not part of the penal code. A doctor can be sentenced to from ten to 25 years imprisonment for performing an abortion. A woman who procures herself an abortion or anyone who helps her can be sentenced to five to ten years. So technically if you give someone an address where they can get an abortion you could be sentenced to ten years.
So, in Belgium abortion is a very serious crime. It should come to a high court with a jury but it never does because this would give it too much publicity.
Q. What has been the response to this?
A. Well, inspite of this law, in 1979-1980 the abortion movement started clinics - first in Brussels and in the French speaking part, then in the Flemish part where there is only one clinic. These clinics have a legal status as contraception clinics but they give abortions. In the first three years the justice system did not react to this activity. That gave some sections of the movement the illusion that it wasn't necessary to fight for depenalisation. We always argued against this — we said that the clinics are important, but we must continue through mass mobilisations to fight for changes in the law. Neverthe• in defence of women's right to less in the last four years we haven't seen any big mass demonstrations or campaigns for two reasons.
Firstly, previous campaigns had not achieved a great deal because half the working class in Belgium is organised in the Christian trade union which is linked to the Christian Democratic Party - the CVP/PSC. They used Catholic ideology to stop any discussion on abortion. So we do not have even a potential parliamentary majority for legalised abortion. Also the bourgeois Liberal Party - the PVV/PRL has recently changed its attitude. It used to be anti the Church (although not for a woman's right to choose and now it is shedding its liberal image - it is more like the Tory Party in Britain. Recently for example, the president of the Flemish Liberal Party said that they would never accept any extremist proposals on abortion. They are more and more opposed to a new law despite the fact that their own liberal women are more and more in favour. Basically the bourgeois parties attack every right which enhances self determination.
So that was the first problem. Secondly, in the last five years there have been many attacks on women such as attacks in social security, cuts in unemployment benefits, high unemployment of women etc. As a reaction to this we succeeded in building a coalition of the womens movement of both the big trade unions but the condition was that we could not take the abortion issue into the platform. In the long terr this will have been a good thing
International Viewpoint 30 September 1985
Marijke Colle (DR)
because now we see it is possible to discuss with Catholic women about all sorts of issues but also, of course about abortion.
Q. What is the background to the recent attacks?
A. The public prosecutor in Brussels said that he was going to start prosecutions because it was high time that the law was applied. So slowly, the repression began to be stepped up - mainly against the clinics and not against the well-known professors and doctors in hospitals, because they know that the clinics are more vulnerable. The prosecutions came slowly at first and were fairly modest. It was very difficult to mobilise against them. Then one doctor in the Flemish University Hospital was prosecuted. He has virtually been doing abortion on demand. His defence became more and more political. It started from pointing out the dangers of back-street abortion and then declared publically in favour of a woman's right to choose. He was less vulnerable because he is a doctor. This was very good for the pro-choice movement and it helped other doctors not to be afraid.
This meant that the justice had to go further. So in December 1984, they raided the Ghent clinic. They seized all the material and every bit of paper (luckily the files of the patients were not there ) and the accounts books. There were a few patients resting after an abortion and together with the doctor who was there and two other women they were taken away for interrogation.
Following this, the clinic immediately started working again with new materials. The investigation was started and one hundred people were interrogated. The investigation was conducted by the Special Investigation Branch of the police force and was led by a woman!
As a result 51 people received a letter from the investigation office in which they were ordered to appear before the Chamber of Justice to determine whether or not they would be prosecuted by a correctional court. The charge was abortion. The 51 were made up of 14 doctors; 16 women who had been working with the clinic - I am one of those, and 21 patients who happen to have paid by cheque and were therefore suspected of having had an abortion. There is no actual proof that abortions were carried out. The clinic is, in fact a completely legal organisation, registed for contraception.
Q. How prepared was the movement then to respond to this attack?
A. Luckily we had been discussing just before the attack the need for a more public campaign which we had planned to launch in September 1985 — the anniversary for the launch of the centre. We had also decided on an emergency plan to get big
International Viewpoint 30 September 1985 press coverage if something happened.
So we were able to organise a press conference and to reach every patient and mobilise supporters for June 14 -the day we had to appear in court. On the day 200 people, mostly women turned up and they got the decision put off until October 4. When the decision was announced we had a demonstration in town and it was on television. Now we are going to build a large campaign against this -the first mass trial on abortion. Abortion has become one of the key political issues for the women's movement and in the run-up to the election campaign. The election is on October 13 and the POS/SAP intend making this one of the major issues.
One important question at stake here is the attitude of the Socialist Party. In theory they are in favour of depenalisation but they never make it a central issue when discussing their programme for government. The line of the POS/SAP is to say that the Social Democrats must refuse to govern in a coalition. Why? Because if they participated in such a government they would stop fighting for, amongst other things, abortion rights. Instead they should be building, together with the women's movement and women's movement and the trade the unions, a mass mobilisation for the right to choose.
Also the abortion issue shoms that the trade unions have to become independent of the CVP/PSC im order to be able to fight in the interests of the working class and that they need their own worker party to do this (See Internationa Viewpoint No 79, July 1, 1985). This is very practical because recently there have been several developments within the Christian trade unions in this direction. Through the women against the crisis group we have been working in this direction with wome from the Catholic trade unions.
In Wallonia there is now the beginnings of a political party that emerged from the Christian Workers movemen and is independent from the bourgeois parties. It is interesting that thes immediately took a position in farou of a woman's right to choose.
Q. What do you want people to do to support you?
A. They should send solidarity telegrams and messages to the Abortus Committee P/A Guinardstraat 3, 9000 Ghent and also to the POS/SAP at 29 Rue Plantin, 1070 Brussels. would like our case to be publicised in the trade union, labour and women's movement internationally. The attack on abortion rights is being stepped up on an international lenel and we have to coordinate response.