Polish Women Strike Against Abortion Ban
Women and allies in Poland are striking against the near-complete ban on abortions in the European country’s capital Warsaw and other cities since the court ruling of Friday, October 30th, 2020. As of last week, abortion or the medical termination of a pregnancy is only legal in cases of rape or incest, life or health risk for the woman.
Since the initial court ruling and the illegalization of abortion in cases besides those mentioned above, Polish women have taken to the streets to strike against the new law. It has now been 7 days straight that women, male allies, and others who sympathise with the struggle have been protesting the near-total ban on abortions, with numerous companies giving their employees a day off in support of their reproductive rights and autonomy over their own bodies.
The Deputy Prime Minister and widely considered leader of Poland, Mr. Jarosław Kaczyński has deemed the protests destructive, urging people to “defend” Poland and the Catholic Church. However, as a man and somebody who will likely never understand the importance and emotional, physical, and physiological weight of carrying a fetus to term, and bringing it into the world should not be allowed to make any decisions, implement them, or support them regarding pregnancies, both continuing them or terminating them.
Regardless of this, the DPM claims that the ruling is meant to protect the unborn children from health defect discrimination, when factually, preventing such a child from going through such pain and struggles would be in the best for not just the unborn child, but their parents and family as well, something it seems like Kaczyński refuses to understand.
The pro-choice movement is signified by a red lightning bolt visible on everything from placards to attire and masks too, but the DPM is comparing the symbol with the Nazi imagery. Furthermore, he goes on to say that there is no way that this court ruling can be changed since it is supposedly consistent with the country’s constitution which protects “the life of every human being”, completely disregarding how the full term pregnancy, the future birth and life of the unborn child affects the mother and its family.
Until the latest court ruling, an unborn child could be aborted on grounds of severe foetal defect, but now this is no longer a valid reason and one of the earlier given reasons must be the case for a legal abortion to go through.
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