Until now, in Poland, pregnancy can be terminated if there is serious damage to the fetus, if it would endanger the mother’s health, if it was the result of rape or incest. Efforts to tighten one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe have not been changed due to mass protests by women in the summer.
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The law has now been tightened by the Polish Constitutional Court, which has ruled that abortion in the event of serious harm to the fetus is contrary to the Polish constitution. This reason is most common in abortions, 98 percent of abortions were performed last year. According to critics, the court’s decision practically means a ban on abortion.
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Friday’s protests in Warsaw
Photo: Profimedia.cz
After the announcement of the decision, the streets of large Polish cities were filled with protesters. In Warsaw, people gathered in front of the headquarters of the ruling PiS (Law and Justice) party and in front of the house of its leader Jaroslaw Kaczyński. It was the PiS party that, with one exception, nominated all judges of the Constitutional Court.
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Its chairwoman Julia Przylebska is close to Kaczyński. The decision of the court is thus understood by the public as the decision of the government party PiS, whose deputies complained about the law. According to critics, the court only “complied with the party’s political order.” On the contrary, the decision was welcomed by the Catholic Church.
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Protests despite measures
Demonstrations in Warsaw on Thursday and Friday turned into skirmishes with police. Dozens of people were arrested. According to the police, some demonstrators started throwing stones, but the news server Onet.pl, according to the ČTK agency, reported relatively calm protests, stating that the demonstrators were only verbally aggressive.
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Despite strict anti-coronavirus measures, during which only ten people can meet outdoors in public, around 13,000 people gathered in Warsaw on Friday. Mass protests also took place in Wroclaw, Poznan and Krakow. On Saturday, thousands of people went on a protest march in Gdansk. Most people wore veils and everything went without police intervention.
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“Apart from the great anger behind these protests, there is an even greater fear that we women will suffer in the name of someone’s clear conscience,” said one of the protesters, Katarzyna Trojanek, referring to MEPs’ statements that the child’s life begins with conception.
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Saturday demonstration in Gdansk
Foto: Peter Pawlowski, Reuters
Further protests are planned for Monday, but protests against coronavirus measures also took place over the weekend. The police had to intervene again. All this at a time when Polish hospitals are beginning to be overwhelmed and the daily increase in those infected has long exceeded ten thousand people and Polish hospitals are becoming overloaded.
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