As Sunsara Taylor brought alive powerfully in her recent speech at Revolution Books, there is a ticking time bomb of female enslavement set to go off by the Supreme Court in late Spring—with the Supreme Court poised to gut or overturn women's fundamental right to abortion established via the Roe v. Wade decision.

RiseUp4AbortionRights.org—bringing together people from all different perspectives—has recognized the need and basis to act in the ways needed in this situation, for mass, defiant uncompromising protest and resistance from every corner of society.

Last weeks' revcom.us put this in an overall context: 

[The revolutionary leader Bob Avakian] has in this period brought forward a major new work titled “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed. A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution.” This work provides crucial leadership to understand the whole situation we face right now, and to transform it—to wrench something “Truly Emancipating” out of this madness, as the title says. But the attempt to deprive women of this basic right concentrates a major prong of the assault of the “Something Terrible” that is not just looming in the distance but barreling down on humanity…unless it is massively resisted and defeated—and that bears heavily on whether there will be a real revolution, the only fundamental and lasting way to end not just the oppression of women but all exploitation and oppression.

Part of the situation we face is that thus far, at least, virtually the entire “official movement” has collapsed and capitulated in advance to the prospect of the fascist-packed Supreme Court moving to overturn Roe and rip away a basic right that has been constitutionally recognized for nearly 50 years.  There has been silence and passivity, with no protest—but there are millions of people who can see, or be won to see, the need to act NOW.  And part of that means letting people know there is a vehicle for this in the Call from RiseUp4AbortionRights.org. 

If the protest for International Women's Day is really going to be what's needed—the beginning of sustained, defiant protest—it has to involve and unleash healthcare workers, progressive religious forces, lawyers, actors and artists, a whole range of movement forces who see the danger... and determined and angry students and youth.  This has to get way out of any one organization's hands... spreading and being taken up all over. 

But for this to really take off, there does need to be a real mass core—cohered organized forces to unleash this.  And so far this hasn't taken off spontaneously in our city.  So as part of taking responsibility for the movement as a whole—a few of us with the Revolution Club are seeing the need to bring together those who are not yet won to taking up the banner of revolution but who would want to fight around this fundamental question.  Without submerging ourselves into it, we're working to initiate broader organization to take up the call from RiseUp4AbortionRights.org.

We've had two zoom meetings of an Ad-Hoc Organizing Committee for International Women's Day, putting the need to people that there needs to be a local chapter of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, with them and others taking responsibility for this while we would work with them to make this happen.

We've been reaching out to people we're meeting on college campuses, high schools, on social media, people we've worked with in various movements historically, writing to academics that we know care about this question... working with others to put out the invite broadly.  The invite was also sent to people who signed the statement for Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights from this area.

So far, these zooms have involved a range of people—students and youth just learning about the attack on abortion and women who remember what it was like before Roe—including those who were in the streets 50 years ago to fight for this right!  This second meeting included some more experienced activists and they'll be important to learn from and work with: reaching out to all kinds of various networks that need to be brought in on this. 

The main thing that has come through—including for the younger people—was learning about and being moved by the discussion of what it was like before Roe v. Wade and the refusal to go back to that, and worse.  This was what connected and cohered people in the discussion.  A high school student who's been taking this up said some people at his school are saying it's traumatizing to have to hear these stories.  One woman took this on and spoke movingly about the trauma of being forced to bear a child against your will... or the lifelong trauma of giving a baby up for adoption.

In our second meeting, we played the first two minutes of Sunsara Taylor's speech (which gives just one story of the terror and devastation for women if they don't have the right to control their own futures and lives) in addition to the last four minutes which lays out a powerful vision of what March 8 is aiming to break open, and the potential for that, including in learning from the struggles of women worldwide, in Mexico, Argentina and Poland.

While there is more work to do to really forge a collective mission around much more than a one-day protest, people did have some important particular ideas about sections of society that need to be reached.

One important exchange in the last meeting was between a college student and a young woman with more activist experience.  The college student said she wants to be part of spreading the word on her campus, but she feels like she's just one person and she's not sure what she can do.  The woman with some more experience from being part of various movements responded that that's how a lot of people feel—and that can hold people back from acting, everyone feeling like an individual off on their own.  But the key thing is to start pulling people together and making a plan together now—making a plan to meet at the bus stop and travel together, making signs together, people are more inclined to follow through on coming if they've been part of a collective process ahead of time.  These were some basic, but important, tips for organizing which I think everyone can learn from.

Some students talked about wanting to wear “bloody pants” to their school—a bold action which symbolizes what it means for women who don't have access to legal abortion.  Another woman talked about the impact of the Handmaid’s Tale costumes and we brainstormed some ideas of how to stir things up with these—going through various shopping areas.  We posted the link to the simple Revolution Club action at World Marriage Day with the Handmaid’s Tale outfits and people were enthusiastic about this.  A couple people talked about the importance of these kinds of symbols and actions that break open the necessary discussion and debate by making things really visible.

Another important thing about these meetings so far is they've provided a way for people to ask questions they're running into, or questions they have themselves—wrangling together over the situation we face, and what's needed while coming from different perspectives and viewpoints.  One person wanted to know more about the Revolution Club and why we're involved... and there was important discussion about whether it's right to say “forced motherhood is female enslavement.”

One thing that's stood out to me in these calls is how we're witnessing all the uncoalesced and untapped potential among people widely—IF they are shaken awake and given concrete ways to act on their outrage.

There's a lot more to bring forward and plan, quickly, but this has been an important beginning.