Women to strike in Poland

Women across Poland are predicted to go on strike against a new law making all abortions illegal and punishable by up to a five-year jail sentence. The law would also see doctors who carried out abortions at risk of prosecution. The current legislation is already hugely restrictive and allows abortion only in cases where the foetus is at grave risk, there is serious danger to the health of the mother or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. However, the new law would prevent abortion in any case, and could potentially see mothers who had suffered miscarriages investigated and called into question. As a result, doctors may fear carrying out even routine procedures on expecting women, for fear of being accused of facilitating an abortion.

The already strictly constricting rules have lead many Polish women to feel they are being stripped of both reproductive and human rights. Poland’s ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (the PiS) have already supported a bill seriously restricting the use of IVF which passed the parliamentary committee stages last month, and The Polish Federation of Pro-life movements has called for a total ban on the use of the morning after pill. The ban would mean anyone caught distributing emergency contraception could be imprisoned for up to two years.

“A lot of women and girls in this country have felt that they don’t have any power, that they are not equal, that they don’t have the right to an opinion,” said Magda Staroszczyk, a strike co-ordinator. “This is a chance for us to be seen, and to be heard.”

The protest was inspired by a strike over 40 years ago where for one day in October 1975, over 90% of women refused to work, cook, clean or look after their children.

One poll for Newsweek Polska has shown that 74% of Polish people support the retention of the current legislation, while a separate poll showed 50% of people support the strike, with opposition expressed by 15%. The ban has received some public support from areas of the Catholic Church, however many Roman Catholics disagree with the new stricter laws, supporting the current ‘compromise’ (the existing law, passed in 1993).

“My mother is very Catholic, goes to church every Sunday, and is against abortion just because you might not want the child,” says a junior doctor who supports the strike. “But she is against this law, because if a woman is raped, she will be treated worse than the man who raped her.”