8 minute read
FEATURED: Poland Policies: Pro-Life Or Pro-Choice?
CULTURE
7 I Don't Wanna Be Like Other Girls: Girly vs Quirky
9 Do You Follow The Disney Standards?
13 Wolfenstein
15 Formula 1's Saudi Arabia Grand Prix
17 Transgender People Competing In Sports: Is It Fair?
FASHION & DESIGN
22 Vivienne Westwood: A Fresh And Daring Vision
24 CELINE: 2021-2022 Vision For Mesnswear
MUSIC
28 Kanye West's 2018: Part 2
31 What MF Doom's Death Means To The World (The Passing Of The Words Most Villainous Villain
33 Misogyny In Music
35 The Misconception Of A Genre: K-pop
FILM
39 Parasite: An Examination Of Social Class Inequality
43 TV Series Highlight: Fargo, A Masterpiece Of Literacy And Cinematic Work On Network TV 45 Top 2022 Films: A Non-Generic Summation
49 Why Remy The Rat From Ratatouille Is A Positive Role Model
52 No Country For Old Men: A Quintessential Study In The Art Of Cinematic Tension And An Exemplar Feature Of The Neo-Western Genre
54 The Oscars: Controversionality Explained
SUMMARY
SCIENCE
58 Accidental Miracle: The Discovery Of Penicillin
61 Telemedicine: The Beginning Of A New Medical Era
64 Start Your Morning In A More Productive Way
66 Test Anxiety: The New Norm?
Creative Writing
19 Memories And Marigolds
27 Mirror, Mirror On The Wall
37 Monster Under Her Bed
57 The Search
Poland Policies: Pro-Life Or Pro-Choice?
VEDANGINI - WRITER BONNY & ILINCA - EDITORS
It’s the twenty-first century, but somehow we always seem to land up arguing about this one question: Should abortion be legal or not?
What is abortion?
In simple terms, it is a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy.
What is the concept of ‘pro-life’ and ‘prochoice’?
- Pro-Life: opposing abortion and euthanasia (Oxford dictionary definition) - Pro-Choice: advocating legalized abortion (Oxford dictionary definition)
Abortion policies during the 20th Century
Under Nazi rule, Polish women were allowed unlimited abortions and this law was imposed on the 9th of March, 1943. However, the dark truth behind this was that most of these abortions were forced in concentration camps such as WaltropHolthausen and Ravensbrück. In 1956, the Sejm (lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland) legalised abortion if the women experienced “difficult living conditions”. In the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s abortion was allowed on request, and women from neighbouring countries such as Sweden traveled to Poland for accessible and affordable procedures. The most notable change to the policies occurred in the year 1990 after the end of Communist rule. The Ordinance of 30th April 1990 made it extremely difficult to access abortion, and in 1933 the law was restricted further with the removal of the clause that allowed women to have an abortion on grounds of “living conditions”. In 1996, an amendment made it possible to access abortion on social grounds (economic or social reasons) but it was quickly struck down in 1997 by the Constitutional Court.
After that, it was only available if:
Threat to the life of the mother (had to be confirmed by two physicians) Foetus was irrevocably damaged (foetal defect) Cases of rape or incest (judicial grounds)
Abortion in the early to mid 21st Century
In June 2011, Polish anti-abortion NGOs collected over 500,000 signatures for a bill that would ban abortion in Poland once and for all. Of course, these NGOs were pro-life and didn’t care about the fact that this bill could potentially ruin the lives of millions of Polish women who were carrying. These NGOs also failed to realise that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) declared that a “fetus is not capable of feeling pain until the third trimester” which typically is around 27 weeks into the pregnancy and that most abortions typically take place in the first 12 to 13 weeks of pregnancy. Although rejected by quite a lot of the MP’s, the bill still garnered enough support to be sent to the Sejm committee for further amendments. This bill was criticised by Democratic Left Alliance, which was a liberal left-wing party. This party was pro-choice and maintained the argument that women should be allowed to make their own decisions regarding their own bodies. The leftwing party made a bid to drop the bill, which was dismissed and the bill was sent to a committee.
The Law and Justice party (right-wing ruling party) was being pressured to impose a more restricted law by the Catholic groups and Bishops, however, there was opposition in both the parliament, as well as the streets. In 2016, approximately 100 000 people took to the streets expressing their outrage regarding the unjust abortion bill that was being pushed in the parliament. However, these voices were ruthlessly crushed. Karolina Wieckiewicz, a lawyer and an activist associated with the group Abortion Without Border (Polish: Aborcja bez granic) claimed that “In practice it takes weeks, sometimes months” to obtain a legal abortion, with some people deciding to “risk the battle in Poland” as others look for alternatives. To me, it’s terrifying to think I’m growing up in a society where women are not allowed to make their own choices regarding their own choices regarding their own bodies, and that a decision that dramatically changes the woman’s life is predetermined by the state.
Abortion policies in the past couple of months
The clause before October 2020 stated that women could request an abortion if: - The pregnancy was a result of rape - The health of the woman was endangered - There are severe foetal defects However, on the 22nd October 2020, the Constitutional Tribunal (constitutional court of Poland) which is notably made up mostly of judges appointed by the ruling party: Law and Justice (PiS), declared that abortions carried out due to foetal defects were to be banned, with medical staff who performed them potentially facing 2-3 years of jail time. People flocked to the streets to protest this cruel law, and on the 23rd of October, the Prime Minister, Mateusz Moraweicki, enlisted the military to help the civilian police in the “protection of safety and public order” on the 28th of October when a nationwide women’s strike was scheduled.
The UN human rights experts criticized Poland for a near-complete ban on abortions and also told the Polish authorities to respect the rights of those protesting.
On the 30th of October, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Warsaw to protest the law, demonstrating what is thought to have been the largest protest in the country since the fall of Communism in 1989. With a musical medley that included Darth Vader’s theme song and techno music blaring from loudspeakers, crowds of women filled the streets. A red lightning bolt (iconic image associated with the movement) adorned most of the women who were joined by hordes of men who believed that all the hard work that went into achieving a democratic country was being wasted under the rule of Law and Justice, which was getting more and more autocratic. Throughout the week, large-scale demonstrations with nearly 430,000 people attended the 400+ protests. While the protesters have been extremely
peaceful, the nationalists and people who supported the pro-life ideology took to the streets, attacking the protesters with flares and hand-tohand combat. Some extremists have even formed their own ‘national guard’ with men clad in black, armed with pepper spray as they patrol the streets during the night confronting peaceful protesters. Two female reporters on the scene, from Gazeta Wyborcza (largest daily newspaper), reported that they had been attacked by the black-clad men.
So, what’s happening right now?
There was almost a three-month delay in the implementation of the court’s ruling which at first was perceived as a victory. However, the public soon realised that the delay was because the government was waiting for the right time to implement this gruesome law. It seemed like the government was waiting for the anger in the protestants to fade and for the heat of the international press to be focused elsewhere.
On the 27th of January 2021, the Constitutional Tribunal published a 154 paged written justification of the restriction of abortion rights. In the ruling, the Tribunal president Julia Przylębska declared that allowing abortion in cases of fetal abnormality legalised “eugenic practices with regard to an unborn child, thus denying it the respect and protection of human dignity”. I, however, think that carrying a child inside your body, nurturing it for 9 months, going through hours of labour pains to give birth knowing very well that the baby was severely defected (eg: lacked a brain, or a cranium or underdeveloped lungs) is an extremely horrifying thing to force women through. Imagine the psychological and physical trauma being inflicted on the woman who was forced to carry her child, knowing very well that it wouldn’t survive. Why should we protect an unborn child who doesn’t even know what life is, rather than a woman who has lived, has seen the world, has dreams and aspirations and goals she still needs to achieve? I firmly believe that the right to abortion, under any situation, should be in the hands of the woman carrying.
What if she can hardly support herself and has no money to take care of the baby? What if she knows that her baby will not survive and wants to prevent herself from all the pain and suffering she would feel as she sees her child take their final breath? Anti-abortion supporters claim to be pro-life, but do they not realise that they are essentially ruining the life of thousands of women across Poland?
