From Poland to Florida, women’s rights are being crushed
AS POLAND’S ABORTION LAWS TIGHTEN, WOMEN TAKE THE BLAME FOR FALLING BIRTH RATE
Across Poland, women’s rights activists are holding their breath for elections later this year, when they hope to overturn the country’s ever more restrictive abortion laws. The fifth trial of Justyna Wydrzyńska took place at Praga Południe District Court in Warsaw this week, and the feeling in the capital is one of frustration and worry. The 47-year-old reproductive rights activist faces up to three years in jail for aiding a medical abortion in 2020, and if she’s convicted it will set a dangerous precedent for the criminalization of people who support those in need of a safe abortion.
Monday’s court heard testimony from “Ania,” a survivor of domestic abuse who asked Wydrzyńska to help her access abortion pills at the height of the coronavirus lockdown. She gave testimony in front of Ordo Iuris, an ultra-conservative group who are supporting the prosecution to represent the interests of the “fetus and its successors.”
In an election year, the issue of reproductive rights in Poland is a particularly urgent point of debate. In October 2020, the country’s government-controlled Constitutional Tribunal outlawed abortion in cases of fetal abnormalities. Poland has now become among the most difficult places in Europe to get a termination, but support for abortion remains high among Polish society — as many as 66% of people support abortion in the first 12 weeks, according to a recent poll.
However, recent preliminary estimates from Poland’s Central Statistics Office show that deaths in Poland continue to outnumber births, and the prospect of a shrinking population will likely be used by anti-abortion activists as an argument to further roll back reproductive rights. The leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has said that Poles are “having far too few children,” shifting much of the blame on women.