Germany – Red Women’s Movement: Call for a Demonstration Defending the Right to Abortion

We hereby share an unofficial translation of a call published by the Red Women’s Movement from Germany on September 14.

Take to the Streets for the Right to Abortion!

Christian fundamentalists and other reactionaries want to spread their arch-reactionary and misogynist agenda on the coming weekend; We will not just stand by and watch them.

Women are people

That which they try to sell as a “right to life” in the sense of a “human right,” in fact means to rob us women of our rights and to degrade us to a means to an end for their interest. But these clear articulations of those disgusting points of the self-proclaimed defenders of life only serve to once again underscore how this State of the bourgeoisie insists on upholding patriarchal oppression by keeping abortions illegal. It underlines once more that this so-called democracy takes a dump on its own and highest laws, like Article 1 of the constitution, with “human dignity being inviolable,” when its consistent application goes against its real interests. Fraud Merz himself proved this clearly with his reaction to the legislative initiative to decriminalize termination of pregnancies, calling it “scandalous”.

Abortion is a class question

As all questions in a class society are stamped with the brand of a class, abortions too, in this society, have always been, and always will be a question of class. The misogynist “defenders of life” say: “Love and responsibility instead of abortion,” but for some of us having an abortion is the most loving and responsible decision for the mouths we already have to feed.

Additionally, women of all classes who do not want to bring a child into the world, will always find a way to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, no matter how hard the government imposes the reactionary ideas of the old society through laws. The ruling class will always be able to pay for a discrete doctor. Meanwhile women of the working class have to find solutions that can put their own health in danger. Globally, 30,000 to 40,000 women still die due to the consequences of pregnancy termination, and that, naturally, happens mostly in countries with even stricter laws.

Even under the current regulation of abortions in Article 218 of the Penal Code in Germany it can be seen, that “the certain circumstances” under which the self-determination of women in this question remains unpunished, are circumstances that are not as easy for women of our class to be in as women of the bourgeoisie: The costs for abortions are high and have to be paid for by oneself, only under a certain threshold of income one can apply for it to be paid for, which obviously is strictly investigated by the State, the facilities are still very much lacking in many parts of the country, etc.

Therefore, we know that the struggle for abortion in the end is a struggle for our survival, not in this system, but us surviving the system.

Down with Article 218! Women struggle and resist!

Take to the streets on September 19 for abortion!

Starting 13:00, Neumarkt, Cologne

Red Women’s Movement

September 2026