Thousands of Poles protested last week over Warsaw’s decision to implement a constitutional court ruling considered an almost outright abortion ban, which puts new limits in place for access to abortions when there are fetal abnormalities. The government waited months to implement the 22 October Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling that essentially bans all abortions after two weeks of gestation.
As we reported in November, more than a million people across the country were angered over a court ruling that barred abortions of fetuses with congenital defects and what demonstrators claim is a patriarchal society.
Last week, protesters took to the streets despite coronavirus restrictions on public gatherings. Activists said the protests are “backlash against” the country’s culture that is akin to a “fundamentalist religious state.”
The Guardian reported the country already had some of the strictest abortion laws in place. There were 1,100 abortions performed legally last year, in the country of 37 million. The report said 60 percent supported the old abortion laws compared to 15 percent in favor of the new law.
The New York Times pointed out that after the government’s move to enforce the ruling, the word “apostasy” trended on Google in the country, and the level of support for churches among the young in Poland is at an all-time low.
“This decision is a declaration of war,” Marta Lempart, a protest organizer, told The Times in a telephone interview.
“The way they are forcing through changes in the midst of the pandemic is unbelievable,” Nadia Klos, a member of the Queen Tour, an LGBT group, told the paper. “It’s an attempt to take away the rights of half the citizens by referring to religion when it’s all about power.”
Another protester told the paper this is a very similar strategy to what communists employ. “They would wait for a time when everything is collapsing and then make changes,” Iwonna Kowalska, a protester with the group “Polish Grandmas,” told the paper.
The Times, citing local reports, said last Thursday there were some arrests, and tension between protesters and police seemed to increase when authorities began to ask demonstrators to show identification cards.
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our forecast that establishment regimes will face increasing pressure from new political movements, led particularly by younger generations.
On the Polish front, as we reported in November when the pro-abortion protests broke out, it was not the abortion issue but a bigger trend that was forming.
We made it clear that we are not taking a position on the subject, which is very sensitive. But rather to illustrate the power of the people and that large masses protesting government actions will often achieve what they set out to do by peacefully uniting and refusing to bow to government pressure.
