Sharing Our Communist Vision here ♦ Capitalist Anti-Abortion Laws Serve Bosses’ Profits, Not Women’s Needs here ♦
Sharing Our Communist Vision
“Thank you for sharing that vision. I loved what you said about a communist world, where no one has the power to force us to sell our labor power,” said Alice. “We’ve been talking about the ability to control our own lives and our own destiny, and what you said sounds like what I want.”
We were in a Zoom book club at the community college where I work. We’ve been meeting for the past two years, talking about equity—the fight against racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia. Despite being on Zoom during the pandemic, we have built close bonds and have had meaningful personal and political conversations.
This discussion had started by talking about gender roles. We agreed that children are molded to fit into gender stereotypes, and that it is both difficult and essential to talk to children about fighting for their own possibilities, against a system that operates to fit them into pigeonholes so they can be labeled, divided, and exploited.
The recent decision of the US Supreme Court came up, and the discussion turned to the ban on legal abortions and the predictable increase in pregnant individuals dying from unsafe abortions. We began to discuss how to fight for a society without these fascist attacks on women.
“I have some communist friends,” commented Janet. “I get frustrated with them because they only want to stick it to the liberals. We need unity on the left. We have to defeat the Republicans who are building a fascist movement by attacking women.”
“I’m a communist,” I said. And I shared the picture above of myself holding a communist sign at a protest against the Supreme Court decision three days ago. “This is not a situation with a quick fix. We need a long-term solution, and in my opinion, we need to fight for a communist society.”
What does communism mean to you?” asked Magdalena.
“The society I’m fighting for,” I responded, “is one without wage slavery or markets, where nothing, including the work of our bodies, is for sale. We will work together, cooperating to produce what we need, and sharing it, rather than selling it. When we do away with market relations—what Marx called the ‘cash nexus’—we will have to build strong, egalitarian, collaborative relationships. We will be able to make sure that no one has power over anyone else. We will be able to get rid of the competition that leads to racism, sexism, and homophobia.”
“I come from a communist country,” said Natasha. “Communists made abortion legal before anyone else did.”
“The USSR certainly did,” I responded. “But that was socialism. It kept wages and the job market, and eventually the gains of the revolution were reversed. We’re fighting for communism.”
Natasha, Alice, Janet, Magdalena and another woman out of the eight people still in the zoom room gave me their email addresses so I could send them an article about abortion from Red Flag published in January 2017. I also sent them our pamphlet, The Communist Fight Against Sexism. I look forward to more and deeper conversations with them.
—Red Teacher
Capitalist Anti-Abortion Laws Serve Bosses’ Profits, Not Women’s Needs
“Women have to have the right to do what they want with their bodies. Abortion has to be legal because it is a woman’s decision, and only we know what is best for us. More resources for health have to be provided for all women regardless of their social class.”
That was the opinion of one of my two daughters, whom I asked for her opinion on the article “Trump’s Gag Rule.” It was an article we wrote in Red Flag five years ago about abortion. Now the US Supreme Court has announced that it intends to reverse the legality of abortion. If so, the US would become the fourth country to make abortion illegal since 1994, after El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland.
Many countries around the world regulate and limit access to legal abortion.
Currently 91 million women of reproductive age live in 24 countries that prohibit abortion regardless of whether the fetus is malformed or the product of rape, or whether the desperate woman does not have the financial means to feed one more mouth.
Five countries do not allow abortion at all. El Salvador gave 18-year-old Evelyn Hernández 30 years in prison, after a gang member repeatedly raped her and she had a miscarriage. The judge sentenced her because she did not seek prenatal care. Before 1998, abortion was legal in extreme cases. Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic have extreme anti-abortion laws, not allowing abortion under any circumstances.
Bosses impose laws based on their needs in a particular place and the historical circumstances in which they find themselves. The truth is that capitalist society by nature is sexist in trying to keep men and women divided with their different social roles.
In this capitalist society, more women will continue to die alone in some dark and smelly room, bleeding and without medical attention. This is because capitalist society does not care about the welfare of a woman who they consider bad for making the decision to abort, without understanding the reasons that led her to make a decision so hard and painful, both physically and mentally.
The reversal of the US Supreme Court decision that allows abortion may have several reasons. The most visible seems to be an attack on Black and Latina women. The least visible may be the influence of the most right-wing and racist leadership of the declining empire, or it may just be the cutting of funds to finance the current war in Ukraine and raising funds for other wars to come.
We don’t know all the details of what US imperialism has in store for the international working class. But because of the dirty history of all the wars, racism, and sexism, we know that the path of the exploiting class is not good for us. It is pure capitalism, where the class that has the economic power decides the lives of the hundreds of millions who have nothing but our arms and minds to produce their merchandise and their profits.
Only in a communist society will women, together with men, be able to decide what is best for themselves and for their entire group. They will no longer be alone against the world. The decision to abort, like other decisions of the utmost importance, will be made by the same historical actors, such as the workers, and not by outside forces such as guilt and laws imposed by those who are not the ones with the problem.
“I strongly agree with this article,” said my daughter after reading a draft. “The government is not banning abortion for the interest on women and newborn lives, but mainly for their financial benefits. It is true that cutting off abortion will provide them with more funds that they will use for their personal benefit.”
—Comrade in Los Angeles (USA)
Read our pamphlet: “The Communist Fight Against Sexism” here
More articles on Anti-Sexist Struggle: here