Thousands of Poles took to the streets in cities across the country on Friday for a second night of protests against a court ruling that paves the way for an almost total ban on abortion.
Poland already has some of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws but, on Thursday, the Constitutional Tribunal said a 1993 law allowing abortions in cases of severe foetal disabilities was unconstitutional.
Once the ruling comes into force, abortions will be allowed only in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s health or life is under threat. Such cases accounted for just 2.4 per cent of the 1,100 legal abortions that took place in Polish hospitals in 2019.
Protests took place in several cities including Krakow, Wroclaw, Katowice and Poznan. In Warsaw, despite a heavy police presence, several hundred protesters demonstrated for a second night near the house of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, founder of the ruling conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party and Poland’s de facto leader.
Carrying placards reading, “You have blood on your hands”, “This is war”, and “Verdict against women”, angry protesters called on the leaders of the ruling camp to stand down. Marta Lempart, a leading women’s rights activist, urged protesters to block streets and roundabouts from Monday.
Earlier on Friday, police said that they had detained 15 people during Thursday’s protest in Warsaw, during which they used tear gas to disperse protesters near Mr Kaczynski’s house. Further demonstrations are due to take place on Saturday, despite a ban on public gatherings introduced by the government to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
“I felt weak at the knees when I heard about the verdict,” said Zuza, a lecturer from Warsaw. “It is completely inhuman. It affects thousands of women in Poland in a very tangible way, and is a cruel torture.”
Since coming to power in 2015, the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice has made promoting traditional Catholic values, which it regards as threatened by western liberal principles, a crucial part of its political platform.
Over the past 18-months attacks on the LGBT rights movement have become a centrepiece of the party’s rhetoric, and it backed away from a previous attempt to tighten abortion rules in 2016 only after huge street protests.
Women’s rights groups estimate that even under existing legislation only about 10 per cent of Polish hospitals perform legal abortions. Around 80,000 to 120,000 women are thought to have abortions each year, many of them abroad.
Thursday’s court ruling was welcomed by anti-abortion campaigners. Kaja Godek, from the group Stop Abortion, said Poland was now “an example for Europe, for the world”.
“We have confirmation that selection and killing of children suspected of genetic defects or of disease is not compatible with the Polish constitution,” she said.
“The right to life was granted, the right to life was recognised.”
However, women’s rights groups and opposition politicians reacted with horror to the ruling, and criticised the announcement of such a controversial decision in the middle of a pandemic.
“From today, Polish women are living in a female hell . . . and doomed to torture, suffering and pain,” Barbara Nowacka, from the main opposition group Civic Coalition, wrote on Twitter.
Maria Lewandowska, a researcher into reproductive health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the decision was likely to have a disproportionate impact on poorer women.
“This will mainly be a tragedy for the underprivileged and those who don’t have the funds to go abroad where they could get good-quality prenatal care and an abortion, if that’s needed,” she said, adding that the ruling would not just affect parents whose baby was diagnosed with conditions such as Down syndrome but also those with more severe and lethal conditions.
“There is a range of foetal abnormalities that warrant, or used to warrant, a legal abortion in Poland. In some cases, these are babies without brains, with the brains not divided into hemispheres, with Edward’s syndrome . . . This ruling will mean forcing women to go through the pain of delivery and the pain of seeing their child suffer and die within a few days of birth.”
"gather" - Google News
October 24, 2020 at 03:04AM
https://ift.tt/34seXDH
Poles gather for second night in protest at abortion ruling - Financial Times
"gather" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Sqdbwp
https://ift.tt/2Yjhqxs
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Poles gather for second night in protest at abortion ruling - Financial Times"
Post a Comment