Women's rights activists and their supporters block rush-hour traffic at a major roundabout on the fifth day of nationwide protests. Photos / AP
Women's rights activists and their supporters block rush-hour traffic at a major roundabout on the fifth day of nationwide protests. Photos / AP
Women's rights activists and many thousands of their supporters held a fifth day of protests across Poland today, defying pandemic restrictions to express their fury at a top court ruling.
It tightens the predominantly Catholic nation's already strict abortion law.
In Warsaw, mostly young demonstrators — women and men —with drums, horns and firecrackers blocked rush-hour traffic for hours at a number of major roundabouts. Some of them took off their shirts and stood topless on top of cars. Many held banners with an obscenity calling on the right-wing Government to step down.
A protesting woman was taken to hospital with slight injuries after she and another woman were hit by a car. The other woman was not injured.
Organisers said people joined their protests in more than 150 cities in Poland, including Poznan, Lodz and Katowice. It was one of the biggest protests against the Government in recent years.
In Krakow protesters chanted "This is War!" — a slogan that demonstrators have repeated often in recent days. They also shouted obscenities against the country's traditionally respected Catholic bishops.
Protesters defied a nationwide ban on gatherings intended to halt a spike in new coronavirus infections.
They have taken to the streets each day since the Constitutional Tribunal ruled on Friday that it was unconstitutional to terminate a pregnancy due to fetal congenital defects. The ruling effectively bans almost all abortions in the country.
People protest in Warsaw against a court ruling that tightened further Poland's restrictive abortion law.
The ruling has not taken effect yet, because it has not been officially published, which is a requirement of a law's validity.
The head of a doctors' group, Dr Andrzej Matyja, speaking on Radio Zet, criticised the ruling's timing during the pandemic, saying it amounted to an "irresponsible provoking of people to rallies" where social distancing cannot be maintained.
Poland's conservative leaders have also come under criticism from professors at Krakow's reputed Jagiellonian University who said that announcing such a ruling during a pandemic was an "extreme proof of a lack of responsibility for people's lives."
In a letter to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and to President Andrzej Duda, who is infected with the coronavirus, the professors appealed for a "way out of the situation ... to be urgently found."
Many gynecologists have also criticised the ruling. Dr Maciej Jedrzejko said the ban will result in a rise in the number of dangerous, illegal abortions, arguing that sex education and access to contraceptives are the best ways to limit abortions.
The ruling by the government-controlled court overturned a provision of the 1993 law forged by the country's political authorities and church leaders after the fall of communism. That law permitted abortion in only limited cases, becoming one of Europe's strictest abortion regulations.
When the ruling takes effect, the only permitted abortions will be if a pregnancy threatens the woman's health or is the result of rape or incest.
