Abortion in Poland

1 Bill Gates, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: the Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (New York: Doubleday, 2020), 198. 2 “Mortality Analyses,” coronavirus.jhu.edu, Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, April 7, 2021, https:// coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality. 3 Nathaniel Parish Flannery, “Why Are So Many People Dying Of Covid-19 In Mexico?,” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, September 3, 2020, https://www. forbes.com/sites/nathanielparishflannery/2020/09/03/ why-are-so-many-people-dying-of-covid-19-inmexico/?sh=3c95afe318e7. 4 Chris Mooney, “The People Who’ll Be Most Hurt by Climate Swings Did the Least to Cause Them, Study Says,” The Washington Post, WP Company, April 29, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energyenvironment/wp/2018/05/02/scientists-just-showedwhy-climate-change-is-enormously-unfair/. 5 Bill Gates, 30. 6 “Plan for Climate Change and Environmental Justice: Joe Biden,” Joe Biden for President: Official Campaign Website, Democratic National Committee, October 29, 2020, https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/. 7 Bill Gates, 84-97. 8 “COVID-19 Map,” coronavirus.jhu.edu, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, April 7, 2021, https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html. 9 Bill Gates, 31. 10 Blaine Friedlander, “Rising Seas Could Result in 2 Billion Refugees by 2100,” Cornell Chronicle, Cornell University, June 19, 2017, https://news.cornell.edu/ stories/2017/06/rising-seas-could-result-2-billionrefugees-2100.

By Eliana Pasternak and Rebecca Miller

Among the many crises currently ravaging the world, oppressive policies on abortion stifle womens’ voices. One of these overlooked crises revolves around abortion issues in Poland. The latest in a series of injustices committed against Polish women is the draconian abortian ban recently passed by Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS), causing mass protests and general outrage against what is clearly an attack on women’s already diminished rights. While Poland used to have more liberal policies on women’s rights, it has a tumultuous history of institutionalized sexism and has long been one of the worst countries when it comes to women’s rights, despite brief periods of liberal gains on the issue. Interestingly, the communist era was a time of improvement for women in Poland. Emancipation of women was a communist slogan, and women received many benefits on paper, including up to three years of maternity leave, free daycare, and leave to take care of their sick children. Following the fall of communism, state-financed childcare ended and it became harder for women to find jobs.1 In 1992, the average wage gap between men and women was 25%. 75% of Polish men and 60% of Polish women believed the women’s place was at home cooking, cleaning, and raising children.2 The early 2000s marked a time of hopefulness for the women’s rights movement in Poland. The 2001 elections had women making up 20% of Parliament, more than ever before.3 But recent events prove that the battle is far from over. Because Poland is a staunchly Catholic country, abortion has always been taboo. The fight over outlawing abortion has been long-fought. The PiS tried to implement abortion bans in 2016 and 2018, but backed off after protests ensued.4 However, they

are now trying again and have not shown signs of backing down. The new abortion regulations in Poland are harsh and exacting, outlawing abortion in nearly all cases. Prior to these new policies, Poland’s stance on abortion was still fairly conservative, allowing women to abort fetuses only in fetal abnormalities, rape or incest, and threats to the mother’s health.5 Under the new regulations, abortions in the case of fetal abnormalities are now illegal. These comprised of 1074, or 98%, of the 1100 abortions allowed in Poland in the last year. Thus, Poland is the European country with the most restrictions on abortion, barring Malta, which has a total ban.6 Fearing legal backlash, many hospitals in Poland pre-emptively instructed doctors to stop performing abortions for fetal abnormalities even before the bill was passed in January. If not for the protests, staged by hundreds of thousands of protestors toting signs with mottos such as “This is war” and “I wish I could abort my government,” the bill would have been passed sooner than October 2020, and its subsequent publication in the government’s journal would have been earlier than January 2021.7 These harsh regulations on abortion are incredibly limiting and sexist to Polish women, and yet, lawmakers from the PiS still hope to push further. Polish policy has gotten increasingly more conservative since the rise of the PiS. The party’s leader and co-founder, Jarosław Kaczyński, is behind the brunt of the abortion policy. He introduced the ban through the Constitutional Tribunal, where decisions cannot be appealed,8 bringing in judges friendly to PiS policy for the vote.9 While Kaczyński worries that the protests are an attempt to “destroy Poland and end the history of the Polish nation,” both the government as a whole and PiS parliamentarian Gazeta Wyborcza worry that the recent rulings on abortion, namely, that it is illegal in all cases except rape, incest, and threats to the mother’s health, are what could be harmful to “Catholic Poland” and give a negative image to the Church. This seems rather unlikely though, as PiS has manipulated state media and courts for the past six years.10 If the PiS’ power continues to go unchecked, women in Poland could have a dark future ahead of them. These severe policies on abortion sparked public outrage and protesting. The protests have been the largest seen in Poland since the fall of communism. The protestors, ranging from teens to older women, chant slogans like “I think, I feel, I decide,” and blast girl power songs such as Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”11 Some women showed up dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. And the protestors are not exclusively women. They also include farmers, miners, taxi drivers, and all sorts of people, many of whom violated COVID restrictions during the gatherings.12 Marta Lempart, a protest coordinator was quoted as saying, “We are dealing with incompetence, corruption, a total decay of the state, so these men are doing what they know best — taking away rights and freedoms from the citizens” and “this is about women, but also about all the other minorities and majorities that Law and Justice hates.” Many people, not just women, are frustrated with PiS. There has been a police presence at these protests, along with an unclear number of arrests. Police made protestors show their IDs before leaving, blocked protestors, and even dragged them away. Another effect of the abortion ban is greater numbers of people,

especially in the younger demographic, turning away from the Church.13 All in all, many are unhappy both with the current leadership and the new abortion regulations. Women in Poland are scared and angry. The abortion ban has caused them to be terrified of pregnancy. Frankly, women have had enough of being marginalized and their voices unheard. Going forward, the future of women’s rights in Poland is uncertain, but this much is clear: women are not going down without a fight.

1 “No place to be a woman: Poland,” The Economist, December 12, 1992, 60, Gale In Context: World History, accessed 19 Jan 2021, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A13242426/ WHIC?u=meri10431&sid=WHIC&xid=6720c32f 2 “No place to be a woman: Poland.” 3 Ginanne Brownell, “Hear Them Roar; In a Catholic country, feminism is now trendy,” Newsweek International,Gale In Context: World History, July 26, 2004, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A119580284/ WHIC?u=meri10431&sid=WHIC&xid=f6218638. 4 Monika Pronczuk, Isabella Kwai, and Anatol Magdziarz, “‘Declaration of War’: Protesters in Poland Vow to Fight Abortion Ban,”, The New York Times, Jan 28, 2021https://www.nytimes. com/2021/01/28/world/europe/poland-protestsabortion-ban.html?action=click&block=more_in_ recirc&impression_id=a9bf8920-61bc-11eb-80cd-0f979 11f875a&index=2&pgtype=Article&region=footer 5 Isabelle Kwai, “Near-Total Abortion Ban Takes Effect in Poland, and Thousands Protest,” The New York Times, 27 Jan. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/world/europe/ poland-abortion-law.html?smid=wa-share 6 “The Guardian view on Poland’s abortion ban: a betrayal of democracy,” The Guardian, 28 Oct. 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/ oct/28/the-guardian-view-on-polands-abortion-ban-abetrayal-of-democracy 7 Kwai.

8 Pronczuk, etal. 9 “The Guardian view on Poland’s abortion ban.” 10 “The Guardian view on Poland’s abortion ban.”

11 Kwai. 12 “The Guardian view on Poland’s abortion ban.”

13 Kwai.