The Supreme Court is poised to rip away the right to abortion in a matter of days. This will be a nightmare: forced motherhood = female enslavement. And it will represent a major leap in the Republi-fascist program to remake America as an openly patriarchal, white supremacist, theocratic nightmare.
Instead of putting their energies into uniting all who can be united to STOP this unprecedented assault, a number of establishment “pro-choice” voices are putting their energies into preparing for defeat while telling people NOT to work with RiseUp4AbortionRights.org—the only organization that has, since January, been sounding the alarm about the actual stakes of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, AND calling on people to act commensurate with this emergency.
A moderator on a popular pro-choice Reddit forum posted that they “do not recommend interacting with or supporting Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights.” They took particular exception with the fact that Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights has made a sharp criticism of the mainstream of the “pro-choice” movement, including “front line abortion access workers,” for capitulating in advance to the fall of Roe.
Front line or not, if all you're doing is preparing for a “post-Roe America” and NOT calling people into the streets to prevent this, that's capitulation. These forces have given up without waging the necessary fight and instead focused on things like underground networks to distribute abortion pills, or trying to raise funds so women can travel to blue states where abortion will be legal (FOR NOW!)—working within the margins of defeat1 and ignoring the fact that the fascists have declared their intention to eliminate the right to abortion everywhere.
What is urgently needed now to STOP the Supreme Court from overturning Roe v. Wade is mass, sustained protest from below—letting the woman-haters on the Court and throughout society know that if they take away the right to abortion, their society will be brought to a halt. This kind of independent upsurge from below is the only way any basic rights have ever been won.
If the U.S. moved to legally reinstate the enslavement of Black people, should we put our energies into figuring out how to build a better underground railroad, or wage the struggle to PREVENT this? What these establishment voices are counseling, with their lowered sights and defeatist cynicism, is a profound illustration of a point the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian, BA, made years ago, “The politics of the ‘possible’ is the politics of monstrosity. To adhere to, or acquiesce in, the politics of the ‘possible’ is to support, and actually to facilitate, monstrosity.”
In order to justify this bankrupt program, these “pro-choice” moderators parrot anti-communist U.S. State Department talking points, throwing around slander and lies. They raise the “scary spectre” of communists working for revolution within the fight for abortion rights as if it's a hidden agenda. We revcoms (revolutionary communists and followers of the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian) do not hide the fact that we are working for an actual revolution to overthrow the whole system of capitalism-imperialism. And it is on this basis that we recognize the need to work in a coalition of people, uniting from many different perspectives and viewpoints to STOP a major fascist attack on women.
Actually ending the oppression of women is impossible without overthrowing the system of capitalism-imperialism—a system based on the most intense exploitation, degradation and destruction of humanity and the planet. The extreme ways women are being slammed backwards by these fascists is one sharp manifestation of the fact as BA has shown, “the crisis and deep divisions in society can only be resolved through radical means, of one kind or another—either radically reactionary, murderously oppressive and destructive means, or radically emancipating revolutionary means.”
These “pro-choice” moderators slander and dismiss the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian, but don't breathe a word about what his actual work is. In fact, a hallmark of the new communism that BA has developed is a further understanding of how patriarchy is woven into this system and how the struggle against the oppression of women is a driving force for revolution, and for making it an all-the-way revolution, breaking ALL tradition's oppressive chains. He has, for decades, analyzed the rise of the Christian fascist movement in the U.S. whose attacks on abortion are a linchpin in their larger male supremacist, white supremacist, America First, theocratic program. BA has developed a strategy for an actual revolution, and written a Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—a sweeping and concrete vision and framework for a society uprooting all the chains of oppression and struggling to emancipate all humanity.
But like unthinking anti-communist robots, all these moderators can say about this is: Mao, bad... Bob Avakian, cult… while they fight for “space” and positions in the most violent and barbaric system ever to dominate the earth. As a political argument, this would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous.2
What all this reveals is that these forces are so enslaved to the system that they're willing to go along with, and accommodate themselves to, the enslavement of women.
Don't be played by, or taken in by these excuses. If you want to see a future where women and girls can live as full human beings, join the fight now to STOP the Supreme Court from overturning Roe! There is not much time, but there is still time to call people into motion. And while we stand shoulder to shoulder in the streets—seeking out the truth, with broadness of mind and generosity of spirit—raise your sights to the need and possibility for a just world, where women and all of humanity are free!