Near-Total Abortion Ban Takes Effect in Poland, and Thousands Protest

[sandensea]

Source: New York Times

A contentious near-total ban on abortion in Poland went into effect late Wednesday, despite rampant opposition from hundreds of thousands of Poles who began protesting in the fall in the largest demonstrations in the country since the 1989 collapse of communism.

Thousands of outraged women, teenagers and allies returned to the streets Wednesday night bundled up against the cold after word that a ruling that halts the termination of abortions for fetal abnormalities — virtually the only kind of abortion performed in Poland — would come into force.

The decision had been made in October by the Constitutional Tribunal, but its implementation was delayed after it prompted a month of protests.

On Wednesday the government abruptly announced that the ruling was being published in the government’s journal, meaning it came into effect.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/world/europe/poland-abortion-law.html

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Abortion rights supporters protest against a ruling that imposed a near-total ban on abortion in Warsaw, Poland.

The hard-right Andrzej Duda administration put the controversial October high court ruling into force today by decree.

The signs refer to hard-line Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński, calling on him to "play Sims, if you like deciding on people's lives."

[SunSeeker]

1. Poland has taken a hard right turn, pushed by Putin playing on their racism.

Last edited Thu Jan 28, 2021, 01:17 AM - Edit history (1)

This is all about the old "white people aren't having as many babies as the others" trope.

[sandensea]

2. Sure. Duda's one of the best known of this wave of Trump-Boris-Bolso RW brigands.

This medieval edict was long overdue, I suppose - coming from Duda, who's been in power since 2015.

To think that was just 3 weeks ago, women's rights activists were celebrating that, in Argentina (a country with a similar population as Poland), abortion on demand was finally legalized three weeks ago.

But then, they managed to vote the "Trump of the Pampas" (Macri) out in 2019; Macri, a longtime Trump pal, had been part of this RW wave.

The new center-left president, Alberto Fernández, spent a good bit of political capital on this abortion rights bill - which remains controversial in the largely Catholic country.

A lot of his political base, you see, is in the poorer northern provinces - where they're for Bernie Sanders-like economic policy; but are more like the GOP when it comes to abortion.

So he took a big chance. We'll see in October how much it may (or may not) have cost him.

Thanks for your insights, SunSeeker. Hadn't looked at it that way.

[SunSeeker]

3. Poland is a very Catholic country as well, but that's not why they banned abortion.

Their anti-abortion fervor is driven by "save our race" eugenics/racism, not religious devotion. It's the same reason Hitler banned abortion for Aryan German women.

Same thing is happening in Hungary. Hungary's Prime Minister Orban, a right wing authoritarian, is similarly trying to ban abortion under the guise of "protecting Hungarian culture" and "traditional Hungarian values."

And Putin is loving this. Sadly, Putin's message plays well in these slavic countries, coming as it is from their Russian slavic brethren. Putin has made big inroads in Serbian politics as well, playing up the 1999 NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia and saying NATO can't be trusted, that the West is trying to obliterate their cultures.