Under Attack: The Fight For Abortions in Poland
In late October of 2020 protestors descended upon the streets of Poland’s largest cities. An affront to both coronavirus restrictions and the brutal action taken by the police, protestors stood up valiantly in cities like Warsaw and Krakow to fight against the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) party’s latest attempt to erode the rights of Polish citizens. Voting in a new law that threatens to end abortion access for the majority of Polish women.
Since the fall of the USSR Poland has struggled to define its national identity, and as the idea of “Polishness'' becomes more obscure, PiS (Law and Justice) have weaponized notions of tradition and identity to ignite their base and join the many other far-right parties that have risen to power across Europe. Initially PiS began, like their neighbours Fidesz in Hungary did, by fear mongering. Their first target were the many refugees fleeing violence and war in the MENA region, then it was the LGBTQ+ community, and finally women.
Leader and co-founder of the party Jaroslaw Kazcynski has said that refugees are not welcome in Poland, and openly called the LGBTQ+ community “threat” to Polish values, now his sights have turned to the women of Polish society.
Just a year after winning their first election the party attempted to introduce a total ban on abortion, threatening jail time for both women and doctors as well as committing to investigating any miscarraigges. In this time Kazcynski was quoted as saying “We will strive to ensure that even in pregnancies which are very difficult, when a child is sure to die, strongly deformed, [women] end up giving birth so that the child can be baptised, buried, and have a name.”
These comments and the proposal of such a complete ban sparked major protest all the way back in 2016, though the world wasn’t paying as much attention at the time. It was in reaction to all of this that Polish women began the Black Monday Protests. The tradition of Black Protests has endured especially in major cities like Warsaw and Krakow since then, but in October of 2020 something broke in Polish politics that reignited the movement and brought international attention to Polish women.
In their just 5 years of power Law and Justice managed to disturb the balance of the Constitutional Tribunal by appointing judges that they knew would remain loyal to the party. Now, of the 15 judges that sit on this tribunal which is responsible for the judicial review of certain laws 14 are known to be loyal to PiS - a clear affront to the very nature of the tribunal itself. This power is proving to be incredibly dangerous, and it's just one of the reasons there were so many people in attendance at the October 2020 protests.
Image from foreignpolicy.com
After spending the last 5 years in power uprooting and decimating Poland’s system of checks and balances their previously tabled restrictions on abortions were now possible - a testament to what they can now achieve. Previously abortion was only accessible under 3 conditions - threat to the life of the mother, sexual assault, or fetal abnormality. The bill which passed late last year said that fetal abnormalities, which account for 98% of Poland’s legal abortions, will no longer be a justification.
This reignited the feminist movement and even amid pandemic restrictions thousands and thousands of Poles poured into the streets to defend women’s rights, abortion rights, and the very future of Polish democracy. With 4 more years of their reign over Poland ahead many feminists across the country fear this won’t be the last attack on their rights to come.
As the movement both for women and against PiS grows, the youth are coming to the forefront. I spoke with one youth activist, Antonina from one of Poland’s more progressive cities in the north, and she told me a bit about her experience.
Amid the chaos, and despite being just 17, she too felt the weight of this moment in time so she took it upon herself to get involved. She and 4 other student leaders got together and organised a protest in her home city of Gdansk. The protest was illegal because of the current COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings and in setting it up she was well aware that it means she now has a criminal record saying: “It was illegal [...] but honestly whatever they [the police] do it was definitely worth it because the cause is way more important to me than actually having something on my record or in my CV”
Their first protest saw a turnout of around 3,000 people and after collaborating with another, larger group their turn out hit about 6,000 protestors. While this was all amazing in the end, Antoninia admits setting all of this up was incredibly hard commenting; “We did a lot of work mostly with other organisations because there are lots of NGOs right now that want to do something good [in Poland] but sometimes the communication was hard [...] I mean, we are kids and we didn’t really know what we were doing. It isn’t something we do every day.”
She, like many young women and young people at large, is occupying political spaces in a way that is new and unfamiliar. For years now the youth across the world have been taking up even more space in activism and local politics, and last fall this sentiment made its way to Poland. We are entering a new era of Polish activism, one where the youth are coming to terms with their role as political actors and the situation they have been born into. As Antonina puts it; “the political situation with PiS is deeply complicated and is rooted in Polish culture. The divisions were here way before I was born - it's the country [rural areas] vs the cities and the old vs the young. It's a similar mechanism that we are seeing in the US and France with Marie Le Pen”
On the 27th of January the government officially made this law, sparking yet again more protest. These moments of massive unrest have to be followed up by further action which the Polish people have clearly committed themselves to doing.* The fight continues to spill over into 2021 and though it began in 2016 there is the same fervour and large scale mobilization. This isn’t PiS’ first attempt to limit women’s rights, it isn’t their first attack on a vulnerable population, and for Antonina and many other young people in her position these are terrifying times.
She says that this moment back in October was a time of realisation. The protests were the “wake up moment for the youth.” She continues, “this was the first time when many of my friends who were never into politics understood that actually they need to be interested in it, because if you are not interested in politics, the politics will get interested in you.”
This moment in time is so important, as she and her peers come into adulthood under this protofascist regime it feels that the political landscape of Poland no longer welcomes her. She opened up about her own fears about the changes she is seeing saying: “They have been in power since I was 13, and my family is very political so I have been aware of what is happening since the beginning. [...] I am pretty scared, I don’t want to stay in Poland for my studies but I hope I will come back.[..] It is home but with the current party, the government, and the current situation I just feel scared especially when it comes to abortion rights, womens rights, and the discrimination. It’s really not safe for many people here which is really scary and sad.”
As these divisions over body politics, reproductive rights, and the nature of human rights as a whole continue to rage on in Poland there are greater questions to be answered about the future of their country. These protests were about preserving women’s rights but they were also about what it means to be Polish today. Will Poland continue, after the next four years, to be a country that calls for conflict and discrimination, or will it be a place where women like Antonina can feel safe?
These are the questions the Polish people will need to answer for themselves, for the women in their lives, and for the future of their nation. With PiS shifting the very foundation of Poland’s two party system, and its judicial review, and even attempting to sever ties with the European Union some have called into question if this will be a choice for the people to make. Antonina, however, feels confident that Poland’s democracy will continue to thrive long after PiS leaves office.
Though the next election is about 4 years away she is excited to be able to fully voice her opinion as she expressed excitedly, “I really look forward to voting for the first time.” For now though, she, like so many other Polish teenagers, has to rely on activism and education to fight off the worst actions of their current government.
In a moment in time where the world seems to be in complete political turmoil, the youth continue to be a saving grace and a guiding light towards hope for a better democracy and even more rights not just for women but everyone.
Hayley Headley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley