On October 19, the New York Times—a voice of the liberal, non-fascist section of the ruling class—ran an op-ed by a conservative professor of government named Jon A. Shields arguing that “A Hard But Real Compromise Is Possible on Abortion.”

Shields argues that the fight over abortion has been dominated by two extremes—those who oppose all abortion and those who insist on “abortion on demand and without apology.” But, he insists, “a majority of Americans are in favor of abortion being legal only in certain circumstances”—okay with it early in pregnancy, but not as late as currently protected by the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion up until about 22-24 weeks into pregnancy. Therefore, asks Shields, why not allow the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and approve the 15-week ban on abortion out of Mississippi that it will be considering on December 1 of this year and call it a compromise? After all, he argues, a majority of Americans “support restricting abortion to the first trimester, roughly the line drawn by Mississippi.”

Why not compromise on abortion? Because women are full human beings! The state should not be allowed to forcibly reduce them to baby-making machines at any stage in pregnancy.

Right now, as the future of women and girls hangs by a thread, all of society should be rocking with mass protests and civil disobedience and walkouts and cultural expressions of refusal to see women's right to abortion further restricted and women slammed violently backwards. Mass debate should be breaking out over what kind of society is this that we live in where this most fundamental right of women could be up for debate in the first place, let alone under vicious assault from Christian fanatics every bit as woman-hating and Dark Ages as the Taliban? And what does it tell us about where this society is headed—and what really must be done to deal with that?

Instead, most people who care about women don't even know this attack is going down. And far too many who do know are counseling capitulation and compromise.

For this reason, as part of getting the clarity necessary to turn this situation around, let's go deeper at what is wrong with Shields’s argument.

First, the fight over abortion is not about weighing the value of two individuals—the fetus and the woman—as Shields claims. It is about the enslavement or the liberation of women.

Fetuses are NOT people. Never. Not at any stage in pregnancy.

Women ARE people. Always.  At all stages in their lives, including if and when they become pregnant.

The only reason why abortion is a point of seemingly unending controversy is that abortion (along with birth control, which is also under attack) enables women a modicum of control over their reproductive lives. When women are able to decide for themselves when and whether to have children, they are able to participate more fully and freely in broader society.

This is what the Christian fascist anti-abortion fanatics who are driving the war on abortion rights really hate. This is what they are determined to stomp out. And there is a powerful movement—of others in the ruling structures of this country who find this program of revanchist patriarchal backlash useful as well as many in the broad population who are steeped in patriarchal tradition and revengist misogyny—that is dangerously close to making this a reality.

Even before Texas’s near-total abortion ban went into effect in September and even before the Supreme Court considers in December completely gutting abortion protections nationally, anti-abortion restrictions along with daily harassment and sustained violence by Christian fascist fanatics have already closed hundreds of abortion clinics across the country, terrorized and assassinated doctors and abortion providers, and shamed, tricked and coerced countless women into having children they didn't want. In opposition to this worsening horror, women absolutely need Abortion On Demand and Without Apology!

Second, Shields's argument for compromise because of what “most people” think is nothing but populist cover for craven capitulation to female enslavement.

What “most people” may think—or be won into thinking or coerced into going along with—does NOT determine what is true or what is just.

At one point, “most people” in this society thought that Black people were subhumans who should be enslaved in the most horrific of conditions. Later, after slavery was forcibly ended through war (not majority vote), “most people” thought that Black people should be kept in a new form of subjugation through new forms of terror. That did not, and does not, make it right. At one point, “most people” thought that the peoples who originally lived on this continent should be murdered and dispossessed of their land. Later, “most people” thought they should be confined in reservations in degrading conditions and made the objects of cultural genocide. That did not make it right. In fact, at one point “most people” thought that women should be legally treated as the property of their husbands. That did not make that right either. And if most people come to think that again, which is where those behind the anti-abortion movement are trying to take this, that will STILL not make it right.

Bob Avakian (BA), the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism, has identified the pernicious way of thinking that capitulates to “what most people think” rather than fighting for what is objectively true as “populist epistemology.”¹ In his book BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, BA makes clear the tremendous harm of this approach:

For humanity to advance beyond a state in which “might makes right”—and where things ultimately come down to raw power relations—will require, as a fundamental element in this advance, an approach to understanding things (an epistemology) which recognizes that reality and truth are objective and do not vary in accordance with, nor depend on, different “narratives” and how much “authority” an idea (or “narrative”) may have behind it, or how much power and force can be wielded on behalf of any particular idea or “narrative,” at any given point. (BAsics 4:10)

The TRUTH is that women are full human beings, not incubators, who must be enabled to participate fully in society and decide for themselves if and when they want to bear children. The tremendous woman-hating anti-abortion sentiment the Christian fascist movement has been able to whip up over decades (aided in large part by thousands of years of patriarchal notions that motherhood should be women's prime want) is something to be fought, not capitulated to! Again, women are NOT incubators and fetuses are NOT babies.

Finally, Shields claims that defensiveness about abortion has persisted despite “pressure from fellow pro-choicers to offer abortion on demand and without apology” and that this proves there is something innately off-putting about abortion. But the reality is the opposite. We got to this horrible place through years and years of abject capitulation.

It is important that some of us, particularly those of us who follow Bob Avakian as he has consistently exposed the woman-hating core of the anti-abortion movement and shown how the liberation of women requires full reproductive freedom, have fought for Abortion On Demand and Without Apology for decades.

But for far too long, mainstream “leaders” who are bound to the system of capitalism-imperialism that we live under have instead sought “common ground” with fascists and ceded the moral high ground to haters of women. This started with Bill and Hillary Clinton insisting in the 1990s that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare,” as if there is something wrong with abortion. It continued through campaigns by Planned Parenthood to insist that they prevent more abortions than anyone else, again, as if there is something wrong with abortion. It continues today with those who insist only that “abortion is healthcare” as if it is healthcare in the abstract that is under attack, rather than the fundamental right of women to be treated as full human beings. And it continues as “leaders” of the Women's March scold people against calling forced motherhood “female enslavement” as if there is something else driving this attack on abortion rights besides the Dark Ages desire to enslave women.

How Did We Get Here... What Must Be Done?

Having exposed what is wrong with three core arguments made by Shields, even bigger questions must be asked and addressed: How did we get to this situation where in this so-called “modern” society we stand on the cusp of seeing women—half of humanity—slammed backwards by the most craven haters of women and the so-called opposition is busy excusing and prettifying this catastrophe? And what must be done?

The truth is that the society we live in—grounded in and shaped by the underlying system of capitalism-imperialism—has patriarchy woven into its foundation and functioning. It is important that, owing to profound economic changes that have pulled many women into the workforce as well as to the determined struggle of women against their oppression, there have been significant changes to the family and to women's position in society in recent decades. But the patriarchal family remains the cornerstone of how children are reared, how the elderly are cared for, how people shelter and eat, and how wealth and social position are passed from one generation to the next, even as it has undergone major strains and changes that are tearing at the cohesion of society.

As Bob Avakian examines much more deeply in his New Year's Statement and elsewhere,² a section of the rulers and a broad base of the population have never reconciled themselves to these changes in the position of women and today are driven by a crazed determination to violently reverse all this. They are convinced that doing otherwise risks seeing the society they love disintegrate. And this vicious patriarchy is integral to their larger fanatical drive to reassert open white supremacy, xenophobia, unrestrained America First domination in the world, denial of science, hostility to the rule of law, and the whole fascist program which has come to dominate Trump's Fascist Republican Party.

But Bob Avakian has also shown, on a scientific foundation, not only that ending patriarchy and white supremacy and other forms of oppression requires the overthrow of this system, but also that this revolution is possible. He has authored a Constitution for the new revolutionary society that not only guarantees women's fundamental right to abortion and birth control, but that unleashes and gives backing to the struggle to firmly and finally uproot and abolish all forms of patriarchy along with all other oppressive relations. And BA has brought alive, through his piece THIS IS A RARE TIME WHEN REVOLUTION BECOMES POSSIBLE—WHY THAT IS SO, AND HOW TO SEIZE ON THIS RARE OPPORTUNITY and in other ways, that it is precisely at this time when the old norms and structures of society are being torn apart that revolution could actually be ripened and made.

People who do not want to see women slammed backwards need to STOP seeking compromise with fascists who will not be appeased or relent until they succeed in battering all of society into their nightmarish vision and destroy and punish all who opposed them. We need to wage uncompromising struggle for abortion on demand and without apology while lifting our sights to and getting organized for the revolution that can win a future worthy of humanity. There will be no return to what was once considered “normal,” nor should we want that. As Bob Avakian puts it in his piece RARE TIME:

Instead of being a tail on the Democratic donkey—with its attempt to keep this monstrous system going, and to deal with the growing fascist danger, by relying on the “normal procedures” of this system and doomed efforts to “heal the divisions” that are deepening every day—people need to work for the revolution that is urgently needed, and deal with the fascist danger as part of doing that.

NO COMPROMISE WITH FEMALE ENSLAVEMENT!

ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!

UNLEASH THE FURY OF WOMEN AS A MIGHTY FORCE FOR REVOLUTION!