Since 2016, Polish women have been engaged in a continuous battle against the politicians from Law and Justice, a right-wing populist party led by Jarosław Kaczyński. Today, as the party lost its bid for majority in the Polish parliament, many questions concerning women’s rights start to arise. Is the democratic opposition going to liberalise the abortion law? And how many more women are going to lose their lives until proper legislation is introduced?
Origins of Strajk Kobiet: Black Monday to 2020 nationwide strike action
On 3rd October 2016, Polish women from over 147 cities took to the streets to manifest their disagreement with a legislation project, Stop Abortion, which assumed total ban on termination of pregnancy and punishment of both women who underwent the procedure, and medical staff who performed it. The Black Monday was the first protest initiative organised by the National Women’s Strike, which has since united human rights activists, politicians, and most importantly, ordinary citizens who revolted against continuous infringement of their rights. Following the first wave of manifestations, Strajk Kobiet called Polish citizens to action on a number of occasions when women’s rights would be questioned by conservative politicians, ultra-Catholic organisations, and pro-life activists. The apogeum was reached in 2020.
During Covid-19 pandemic, Polish Constitutional Court, infiltrated by Law and Justice party members, deemed abortions in case of ‘fatal foetal anomaly’ unconstitutional. The court’s ruling, criticised by EU parliament and human rights organisations worldwide, became the ultimate trigger for a large-scale strike action. In the last week of October 2020, manifestations broke out all over the country. Yet this time women were joined by their husbands, fathers, siblings, and children, amounting to 430,000 people in 410 cities. Despite the imposed lockdown, many citizens left their homes to block city traffic with car protests and marches, while those in Warsaw occupied the streets near Kaczyński’s house. According to the press, 80% of the slogans which accompanied the strike action in October 2020 were considered vulgar and obscene, with “Fuck off!” (pol. Wypierdalać!), “Can I abort my government?” (pol. Rząd nie ciąża, da się usunąć) and “This is War” (pol. To jest wojna) reaching peak popularity during that period. Within weeks of the mobilisation starting, some of these expressions have been graffitied on the walls of churches and public institutions, which led to accusations against the Polish Women’s Strike of vandalism and religious offences. Still, Strajk Kobiet’s leaders weren’t going to give up on their demand to force the government’s dissolution. In the end, their call for continued disobedience during Sunday services at Polish churches ended in multiple arrests of women’s rights advocates. No changes to the status quo have been introduced. The restrictive abortion law remains in force to this day.
Aftermath of the restrictions
In 2021, the removal of the right to abortion on the grounds of pregnancies with foetal defects took its first victim. 30-year-old Izabela from Pszczyna died in hospital after the doctors had been hesitating for too long before terminating the malformed pregnancy. So far, the Polish media have reported as many as 6 cases of death which resulted directly from medical staff’s failure to save the mother’s life in time. Under the 2020 legislation, the obstetricians who perform abortions against governmental regulations may face up to 3 years of imprisonment. Another loud scandal concerning the abortion ban reached the media in July of 2023, when Joanna from Kraków got to hospital in Poland’s second biggest city after taking abortion pills at home. Shockingly, instead of offering her medical assistance, the doctor who admitted the patient called the police, confiscated her personal belongings, and asked her to ‘undress, squat down and cough’. Joanna’s testimonies from the unlawful arrest (self-induced abortion is legal in Poland) point to the humiliation and devaluation of Polish women by the right-wing authorities who intentionally turned the country into modern-day Gilead, or, as the Polish would call it after Boy-Żeleński, Piekło kobiet (eng. women’s hell).
The democratic change vs women’s issue
On 15th October 2023, the democratic coalition of three parties won the parliamentary elections, successfully removing Law and Justice from power after 8 years of para-democratic rule. Women voters, whose turnout surpassed 74%, cited the right to abortion as the most important reason for overthrowing Kaczyński’s government. Although national enthusiasm persists among liberal circles, one cannot be sure whether the pre-election promises of alleged liberals are going to materialise anytime soon. As for now, one of the oppositionist leaders, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, refused to back any ‘ideological matters’ insisted upon by the rest of the coalition, e.g., the right to abortion, same-sex marriages, and adoption of children by same-sex couples. In response, the left-wing leader, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, shared that his hopes for change to Polish women’s situation are rather low at the moment. Apart from the internal conflict of the opposition, the presidential veto claimed by Law and Justice’s Andrzej Duda is yet another threat to potential liberalisation of the abortion law. Considering that the new authorities have other fish to fry following their recent rise to power, a forecast of women’s rights getting sidelined, put off for later, seems disturbingly probable. The nature of the ‘democratic change’ shall be thus contested, given its unlikeliness to guarantee fundamental rights to 52% of Polish citizens. Everything shows that before long we’ll see each other in the streets again.
By Gosia Koroluk