Poland Swept Up in Fresh Wave of Protests Around Abortion Rights
Thousands of abortion-rights advocates took to the streets across Poland after the Constitutional Tribunal clarified its ruling that effectively bans women from terminating pregnancies.
Resuming some of the largest anti-government rallies since the collapse of communism three decades ago, protesters on Wednesday defied lockdown restrictions on public gatherings as well as freezing temperatures.
Hours earlier, the top court — stacked with justices appointed by the ruling Law & Justice party — published a written justification of its October ruling, which tightened one of Europe’s strictest laws on ending pregnancies. That decision, applauded by the government, triggered weeks of protests and an escalation of tensions following brutal police crackdowns on demonstrations.
“This is a total insult,” Klementyna Suchanow, a leader of the Women’s Strike movement, told reporters in Warsaw. “Until now we’ve talked about a hell being created for women, from now on we’ll talk about hell for this government.”
Private broadcaster TVN24 showed a street march in Warsaw stretching to more than one kilometer (0.6 mile) in length, with smaller ad-hoc rallies staged in Wroclaw, Katowice, Poznan and Szczecin.
According to the court’s 154-page clarification, abortion is admissible if there’s high probability of irreversible or lethal damage to the fetus along with danger to the health or life of the mother, the Interia.pl news website reported.
Poland’s government has been stalling the implementation of the verdict for over three months, an unprecedented move without legal justification, by withholding its publication in the official gazette, which is required for the ruling to come into force. The cabinet’s press office said the ruling will be published as quickly as tonight.
