Poland: war on women

Warsaw, November 30, 2021
Polish Women’s Strike press release

Polish Women’s Strike activists spilled red paint and left slogans written on cardboards outside Polish ruling party (PiS) offices in different cities in Poland over the weekend and outside Polish parliament on Tuesday as warning signs before the upcoming parliament sitting. The action, called „Don’t ask for my blood, Poland” is the preview of the protests planned for Wednesday against two draft bills that will be proceeded on those days.

On November 30th Polish Sejm (lower chamber of the parliament) will be proceeding the outrageous draft bill creating of the “Family and Demographic” Institute, that will be led by right wing fundamentalist parliamentarian Bartłomiej Wróblewski, the author of the motion to the pseudo-Constitutional Court which has resulted in the current ban on abortion. The goal of the institute is to make Poland’s birthrate higher by limiting number of divorces and “creating proper social context”. The person leading the institute will be able to participate in all court proceedings and in any administrative process, acting as a prosecutor – for example in a divorce proceedings, demanding that the divorce should not be granted. He will be able to bring cases against LGBT parents – demanding that they be deprived of their parental rights. He will have access to data collected by any entity in Poland on every pregnancy, every miscarriage, every woman in Poland.

On December 1st Polish Sejm will proceed the bill establishing a total ban on abortion in Poland, including cases of rape and danger to woman’s health – along with imprisonment for abortion, miscarriage and for any assistance in abortion.

Both bills, if passed, will be proceeded in the Senate on December 14th and 15th, with addtitional porceedings in the Sejm if contested on December 17th, which means that both laws are likely to be implemented starting on January 1st, 2022.

Poland already has one of most restrictive laws on abortion in Europe, with practical ban on abortion caused by the pseudoruling by the unlawfully appointed Constitutional Court made on October 22nd, 2020. The move sparked a wave of protests all over Poland, organized and/ or coordinated by the Polish Women’s Strike, lasting 100 days and causing the implementation of the pseudoruling to be delayed by 3 months. Bills planned to be proceeded in the following week are the next step of closing the repressive system aimed at removing all reproductive rights from women living in Poland. It is also a part of the anti-human rights crusade aimed at women and all minorities in Poland (including LGBT+ rights).

Marta Lempart, “Polish Women’s Strike: – This is a full blown war on women in Poland. This is a full blown war against women’s rights, human rights, but it also a part of the rule of law disaster in Poland, with the Polish government erasing all freedoms and getting away with it. They have blood on their hands. What else has to happen? How many more of us have to die? We say not one more and we resist, but we need help here, as we stand our ground.”

Media contact: press@strajkkobiet.eu

For more pictures please visit: https://spacerowiczka.pl/