How women are resisting Poland's abortion ban
(a lengthy, important read)
How women are resisting Poland’s abortion ban
A pro abortion sticker is attached at the entrance of a church yard. Church has always been very critical towards abortion, admitting it only in extremely rare cases
In a Warsaw neighbourhood, the Ryz sisters spend the better part of an hour placing stickers with the numbers of pro-choice organisations [Alessandro Rampazzo]
By Costanza Spocci
Published On 26 May 202226 May 2022
Warsaw, Poland – On a cold, hazy December morning, the Ryz sisters stand on a sidewalk of a busy street in Warsaw. “Shall we go to church?” 24-year-old Olympia asks her sister, Melania, grinning and holding up a dozen pink, yellow and grey stickers with the words, “Abortion is OK”, and the hotline numbers and social media profiles of Polish pro-choice organisations. At the first church they encounter in the residential neighbourhood of Bródno, Olympia, who wears a black woollen cap over her long, blue hair, calmly peels the back off a sticker and sticks it on the gate. She says they don’t want to anger anyone. “We are just helping Catholic women because they have abortions, too,” she says. “Our goal is to help all the women.”
The sisters are volunteers with the Aborcyjny (Abortion) Dream Team (ADT), a solidarity network supporting Polish women seeking an abortion. The siblings, both medical students, spend a fair amount of their spare time answering the queries that come to ADT and spreading the numbers of civil society organisations across the Polish capital so that women in the city of about two million know who to contact if they have an unwanted pregnancy.
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Soaring abortion requests
A young woman walks near by the Palace of Culture and Sciences in downtown Warsaw
Poland's near-total abortion ban went into effect on January 27, 2021, essentially barring women from access to legal abortions [Alessandro Rampazzo]
On October 22, 2020, Poland’s constitutional court ruled abortions for foetal defects were unconstitutional, introducing a near-total ban on terminations. The ruling de facto barred women from accessing already highly restricted legal abortions. In 2019, 98 percent of the 1,100 legal abortions carried out in Polish hospitals were done so on the grounds of prenatal abnormalities. The ruling went into effect on January 27, 2021, and abortion is now only permitted when there is a threat to a woman’s life and health, or in cases of rape or incest. At present, women who have illegal terminations do not face any criminal penalties although a bill has been introduced to consider abortions a homicide.
The court decision came after years of ultra-conservative and ultra-nationalist pressure under the governing Law and Justice party (PiS). Since coming to power in 2015, PiS has repeatedly tried to curb sexual and reproductive rights. In 2016, a proposal supported by elements of the PiS to introduce a total abortion ban was abandoned after mass protests and the party was forced to take a step back. In recent years, PiS’s grip on society and politics has intensified with the erosion of fundamental rights and unprecedented changes to the country’s judiciary, undermining the rule of law. Since the near-total abortion ban took hold more than one year ago, terminations have not stopped. Women, unable to rely on the Polish health system, turned to pro-choice groups for help. The number of women contacting these networks seeking abortions has soared, according to activists.
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https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/5/26/how-women-are-resisting-polands-abortion-ban
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