Protests across Poland have attracted more than a million people, angered over a court ruling barring abortions of fetuses with congenital defects and what demonstrators claim is a patriarchal society.
Marta Lempart, a lawyer and a leader of Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet (OSK), a grassroots women’s movement, told the Guardian she believes the protests are “backlash against” the country’s culture and the “fundamentalist religious state, against the state that treats women really badly.”
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the country’s “right-wing” government did not immediately implement the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling on 22 October that essentially bans all abortions after two weeks of gestation. The paper said the government’s actions were likely a direct response to the protests, which were largely peaceful, but there are times when those who supported the new ruling confronted protesters.
Protesters claim the court’s decision and lockdown mandates are two examples of Warsaw skipping the democratic process and using its favorable courts to approve the measures.
Poland has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. There were 1,100 abortions performed legally last year in a country of 37 million. The report said 60 percent in the country supported the old abortion laws compared to 15 percent in favor of the new law.
“We are a religious state where we are all demanded to think in one possible way,” a 15-year-old girl told the Guardian. “We don’t want to live in a country where we don’t have a choice, where everything is decided for us.” One protester held up a sign that read, “I wish I could abort my government. This is war.”
TRENDPOST: We note the demonstrations going on in Poland not because of the abortion issue. To make this clear, we are not taking a position on the subject, which is a very sensitive. But rather to illustrate the power of the people. The large masses that protested government actions (so far) are achieving what they set out to do by peacefully uniting and refusing to bow to government pressure.
