ARTICLES ment.
The Barricada articles began in wovem ner year, exposing women suffering jury. Most are class women: only those with money safe private clinics.
Since the articles appeared there been discussion in Barricada, in the two other dailies Nuevo Diario La rrensu — ana In lany ul the mass organisations. Policy Arguing in favour of legal abortion the December issue Barracada Commander Doris Tijerino, FSLN leader and national police chiet, said the current law restricted civil rights. 'As a woman, think Ine law making abortion a crime ought to newspaper, have sparked off an intense debate on abortion in Nicaragua. Abortion is still illegal. The only exception is a 'therapeutic' abortion for which the women must get approval from a three-doctor ethics committee and permission from her husband or parent. The law dates back to the Somoza governThe catholic church, which is very influential and still has a large following, released a statement in mid-December titled Thou shalt no kill'. It accused women wno have abortions of murder, and supported the existing law The statement also committed the archidiocese against birth control, which is legal. The abortion plague, it said, begins Will letting USC contraceptives. Featured prominently the capitalist-controlled La Prensa. which also ran a series on the 'abortion is murder' theme.
More sophisticated or confused arguments against abortion included column in Nuevo by Gaspar Calderon. Calderon argued the Sandinistas should not legalise abornon because mecca came from the capitalist world along with other extreme feminisms'.
'If we establish
Nicaragua an abortion law like those in countries that davancea and pro gressive" also bourgeois and oppressive, the column said, "then there's no need tor a sandinista revolution shouldn't bourgeois countries dictate the of revolutionaries.
Barricada staff writer, Elsa Gomez, also column on the lall paper s editorial pages which called massive resources to be put into housing, child care, education and services as alternative to legal abortion.
Other writers have echoed the view that aborComandante Tijerino, pro-abortion police chief tion is primarily the consequence of poverty, and not an issue of women's rights.
Both Calderon's views Gomez's arguments have attracted considerable opposition. One of the several women who wrote to El Nuevo Diario contradict Calderor pointed out that in North America, Wan under vicious attack from right wing, with Reagan's support.
True Arguing against Gomez other OD• ponents legalisation who support the revolution, a group of nurses, interviewed in Barricada. In
Socialist Action 14 February 1986 of a whole new generation of leaders that developed