Angry women block traffic across Poland over abortion ban

WARSAW,
Poland (AP) — Women’s rights activists and many thousands of supporters
held a fifth day of protests across Poland on Monday, defying pandemic
restrictions to express their fury at a top court decision that tightens
the predominantly Catholic nation’s already strict abortion law.

In
Warsaw, mostly young demonstrators — women and men — with drums, horns
and firecrackers blocked rush-hour traffic for hours at a number of
major roundabouts. Some of them took off their shirts and stood topless
on top of cars. Many held banners with an obscenity calling on the
right-wing government to step down.

A group of far-right
supporters held a counter-protest in front of a church and police in
riot gear kept the two groups apart, using pepper spray at one point.
Some of the people protesting the court ruling were detained and others
sat down in the street to stop the police van taking away the detainees.

A protesting woman was taken to hospital with slight injuries
after she and another woman were hit by a car. The other woman was not
injured.

Organizers said people joined their protests in more than
150 cities in Poland, including Poznan, Lodz and Katowice. It was one
of the biggest protests against the government in recent years.

In
Krakow protesters chanted “This is War!” — a slogan that demonstrators
have repeated often in recent days. They also shouted obscenities
against the country’s traditionally respected Roman Catholic bishops.

Krakow
archbishop Marek Jedraszewski said the protests were marked by
“aggression unknown so far in Poland, when the sanctity of churches, of
sacred places is being violated.”

Protesters defied a nationwide ban on gatherings intended to halt a spike in new coronavirus infections.

They
have taken to the streets each day since the Constitutional Tribunal
ruled Thursday that it was unconstitutional to terminate a pregnancy due
to fetal congenital defects. The ruling effectively bans almost all
abortions in the country.

The ruling has not taken effect yet, because it has not been officially published, which is a requirement of a law’s validity.

The
head of a doctors’ group, Dr. Andrzej Matyja, speaking on Radio Zet,
criticized the ruling’s timing during the pandemic, saying it amounted
to an “irresponsible provoking of people to rallies” where social
distancing cannot be maintained.

Poland’s conservative leaders
have also come under criticism from professors at Krakow’s reputed
Jagiellonian University who said that announcing such a ruling during a
pandemic was an “extreme proof of a lack of responsibility for people’s
lives.”

In a letter to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and to
President Andrzej Duda, who is infected with the coronavirus, the
professors appealed for a “way out of the situation … to be urgently
found.”

Many gynecologists have also criticized the ruling. Dr.
Maciej Jedrzejko said the ban will result in a rise in the number of
dangerous, illegal abortions, arguing that sex education and access to
contraceptives are the best ways to limit abortions.

The ruling by
the government-controlled court overturned a provision of the 1993 law
forged by the country’s political authorities and church leaders after
the fall of communism. That law permitted abortion in only limited
cases, becoming one of Europe’s strictest abortion regulations.

When
the ruling takes effect, the only permitted abortions will be if a
pregnancy threatens the woman’s health or is the result of rape or
incest.

Among those who support the ruling is European Parliament
lawmaker for the conservative ruling party, Patryk Jaki, who is the
father of a child with Down syndrome. He warned on Twitter that
abortions can also eliminate healthy children “because you rarely are
100% sure.”

Jaki also argued that abortions contribute to the
nation’s low birthrate and said that they could be a “threat to Poland’s
state.”

Health Ministry figures show that 1,110 legal abortions
were carried out in Poland in 2019, mostly because of fetal defects. The
non-governmental Federation For Women and Family Planning estimates
that Polish women undergo some 100,000 to 150,000 abortions a year, some
illegally in Poland and others abroad.

Women’s Strike, the key
organizers of the past day’s protests, says that forcing women to carry
through pregnancies involving fetuses with severe defects will result in
unnecessary physical and mental suffering for the women.

Group
leader Marta Lempart said there will also be a nation-wide strike
Wednesday and a protest march Friday in Warsaw, the seat of the
government, the constitutional court and the right-wing ruling Law and
Justice party behind the court’s decision.