Polish women: "This is a war"
It is the slogan with which women reject the recent ban on abortion due to fetal malformation. Let's support their fight.
The far-right party Law and Justice (PiS in Polish) you requested the justice to make the right to abortion impossible in case of fetal malformation. And the Polish Constitutional court gave the reason, without caring about the situation that women go through, aggravated due to the occurrence of the pandemic.
At 2016 our Polish sisters took to the streets dressed in black and with umbrellas to protest against the cutting of the right to abortion. Those images traveled the world and moved people so much as well as the feminist organizations that were in solidarity with the strike and the demands to prevent women's rights from being curtailed. As in Andorra, how in Argentina of green scarves and in other countries, we feel united in The struggle. Something we must reissue.
Poland already had one of the oldest abortion laws restrictive Europe. Until last 22 October, the abortion was allowed in case of serious risk to the mother's health, violation, incest and poor fetal formation. With justice making abortion impossible in case of malformation of the fetus there is a serious setback that places Poland among the countries in which being a woman and deciding on your body is a contradiction illegal. The justification for such aberration was that this kind of terminations of pregnancy "Legalize eugenics".
Not by chance, the decision has been made by a court chaired by the judge, Julia Przylebska, appointed after the PiS judicial reform, that facilitated his arrival in office by eroding the already weakened independence of Justice. The sentence has also been criticized by numerous associations that watch over Human Rights, the commissioner of human rights. of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatovic, and even former Polish Prime Minister and former President of the European Council Donald Tusk, they have described it as “political villainy“; “what the court has done is to make torture against women legal”, explained activist and journalist Maja Staśko.
Another actor behind this new subjugation of the right to decide is the Catholic Church. Although he has pretended that he has nothing to do with the PiS request, its temples have been the first to be pointed out by the enormous dependence between the executive and ecclesiastical powers. In fact, the ultra-conservative Archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jedraszewski, greeted the “verdict we have waited for so long. Killing a sick or incurable fetus is unconstitutional”.
In a country where 97% of legal abortions during 2019 have been precisely due to fetal malformations, This restriction is a clear message against the freedom of rights of all women and will put the mother's health at risk, like the newborn. That is why the Strajk Kobiet organization, the feminist association that leads the protests against the veto of abortion in the country, has organized this Wednesday 28 October a general strike of women to show their indignation and total rejection of the Constitutional Court ruling to restrict the interruption of pregnancy to the maximum. Under the motto: "This is a war" and using a red ray with a black background as a symbol, thousands of women have taken to the streets.
With the drawing painting on the face, on banners and on various places, Polish women fight to regain women's rights, in a country where important steps are being taken backwards in terms of equality. Let us remember that a few months ago more than 100 Polish cities are they declared “free from LGBTI ideology”, what paved the way for gay people, lesbians, bisexual and trans sean hunted. In fact, the government of the far-right Andrzej Duda, What is it supported by PiS, announced that it will give money to those municipalities to carry forward your nefarious task.
Although it is not known how many women have supported the strike, What is clear is that it was an initiative without the backing of any union and that was widely accepted throughout the country. In this way and by seventh consecutive day, despite the threat of the growing number of COVID-19 infections, thousands of people have protested against the Constitutional ruling.
In 2016 women managed to stop the right-wing and ultra-Catholic advance, but this situation shows us that we cannot lower our guard, nor back down in the fight for more conquests, since this system will always try to cut us rights and freedoms. That is why from Juntas y a la Izquierda and SOL in the International Socialist League we stand in solidarity and support the claim of Polish women. It is unacceptable that in the XXI century there are still countries in which women cannot decide about our bodies with total freedom. We will join the demonstrations because, if they touch one, they touch us all. May capitalism and patriarchy fall together.
