Why Women in Poland Are Protesting Over Abortion

Including the protests that took place earlier this week.
Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy, Teen Vogue
Oct 27, 2016 4:26PM EDT

For the past month, thousands of women have been staging protests all across Poland in response to proposed additional restrictions to abortion access in the country, which already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws of all of Europe. Right now in Poland, abortion is illegal in all cases except those involving rape, incest, danger to the pregnant woman’s life, or severe fetal abnormalities, but the most recent proposed legislation would ban abortion in all cases except when the woman’s life is in immediate danger.

Here’s what you need to know about the protests happening in Poland right now.

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Source: Teen Vogue

27.10.2016

Polish women's strike

NI woman charged over abortion pills

By Chris Buckler, BBC Ireland Correspondent

27 October 2016

A woman was reported to police in Northern Ireland and charged in connection with using abortion pills after she sought medical help, the BBC has learnt.

The purchase and use of abortion pills is illegal throughout the UK.

However, there is particular concern about their availability in Northern Ireland.

This is because a termination is only allowed where a woman's life or long-term health is put at serious risk.

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Source: BBC.com

27.10.2016

Malawi Churches back abortion bill: Pastors ask MPs to approve Termination of Pregancy law

October 27, 2016 Alfred Chauwa - Nyasa Times

Some clerics under the banner if Malawi Council of Churches (MCC) are now backing a bill aimed at preventing unsafe abortions called Termination of Pregnancy Bill.

Termination of Pregnancy Bill awaits Parliament’s enactment.

Grounds for pregnancy termination in the bill include rape, incest, foetus deformation and pregnancies that endanger women’s lives or may cause mental or physical health complications.

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Source: Nyasa Times

27.10.2016

Termination of Pregnancy Bill

Poland’s abortion laws: activists blame grip of ‘hardline’ church

Campaigners believe Catholic priests are exerting political leverage to further restrict women’s reproductive rights

Carmen Fishwick

Thursday 27 October 2016 07.30 BST

“It’s a strange thing to say about a country in the middle of Europe, in the 21st century, but this is how it works – nearly all politicians here are afraid of the Catholic church,” said Anna Leszczyńska, a women’s rights activist.

Thousands of campaigners marched through Poland’s largest cities on Sunday and Monday to protest against the government’s proposals to further restrict abortion laws in the country.

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Source: The Guardian

27.10.2016

Ireland Grapples with the Thorny Issue of Repealing an Abortion Ban

Jennifer Duggan / Dublin, Ireland @jenniduggan
Time.com

October 27, 2016

A young, secular population helped pass same-sex marriage in Ireland last year and wants abortion restrictions overturned — but the fight is proving bitterly divisive

Ninety-nine Irish citizens from across the country travelled to the center of Dublin on a recent Saturday to begin an unusual exercise in democracy. Known as the Citizens’ Assembly, the randomly selected group has been tasked with discussing and making recommendations on one of the country’s most contentious and politically and socially divisive issues — its restrictive abortion laws.

Sitting in rows amid gold columns in the royal blue grandeur of the hall where Ireland’s presidents are inaugurated, they were thanked by Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Enda Kenny for their “civic generosity and courage” for taking part in the forum that will consider a matter “deeply complex, hugely challenging and profoundly ethical.”

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Source: Time.com

27.10.2016

U.S.: How a Harrowing Photo of One Woman’s Death Became an Iconic Pro-Choice Symbol

How a Harrowing Photo of One Woman's Death Became an Iconic Pro-Choice Symbol
by Amanda Arnold
100 years
Oct 26 2016

In 1973, Ms. magazine published a haunting photo of a woman named Gerri Santoro, who'd died of a back-alley abortion. At the time, no one could have predicted what an impact it would have on the pro-choice movement, or how many decades later we would still be fighting to keep women from having to seek out illegal procedures.

People knew of Geraldine "Gerri" Santoro's cause of death—an air embolism caused by a back-alley abortion—before they ever knew her name.

On June 8, 1964, the 28-year-old married woman and her lover, Clyde Dixon, checked into Connecticut's now-closed Norwich Motel with no vacation suitcases or change of clothes for an overnight stay. Instead, she brought a catheter and a textbook. Santoro, six and a half months pregnant, was prepared to let Dixon perform her illegal abortion—that is, until she started hemorrhaging during the process and Dixon panicked, abandoning Santoro to bleed to death on the motel floor.

Continued at source: Broadly/Vice: https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/how-a-harrowing-photo-of-one-womans-death-became-an-iconic-pro-choice-symbol

Poland: What It’s Like to Have an Illegal Abortion

By Izabela Szumen
October 26, 2016

This article originally appeared on VICE Poland.

In late September and early October of this year, thousands of men and women took to the streets of the biggest Polish cities to protest a proposed ban on abortion. Abortion is already illegal in Poland, but this amendment would have also banned the current exceptions to the rule—where women were allowed to have abortions after being raped, if the mother was at risk, or if the fetus was severely damaged, for example.

After these nationwide protests, the new proposal was shut down. But a week later, Jarosław Kaczyński—chairman of Polish ruling party Law and Order—vowed that his party "will strive to ensure that even in pregnancies when a child is sure to die, severely deformed, women end up giving birth so that the child can be baptized, buried, and have a name." This led to a new round of protests held on October 23 and 24.

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Source: Vice Poland

26.10.2016

A discussion with the Polish Greens on abortion and women’s rights

Oct 25, 2016

Recently, Eliana Capretti from the European Green Party spoke to the leader of the Polish greens, Malgorzata Tracz, about the Black Protest and the continuing struggle for abortion rights in Poland.

The Greens are one of the main members of the “Ratujmy Kobiety” (rescue women) committee that gathered over 215,000 signatures for the liberalisation of the abortion law. When the Polish Parliament decided to proceed with the “Stop abortion” project and reject the liberalisation project “Ratujmy Kobiety”, ‘black protests’ started in Poland. This was the first time in modern Polish history that hundreds of thousands of Poles protested on the streets to protect women’s rights. The Greens took part in the main protests and demonstrations. Right now they continue fighting for the liberalisation of an abortion law and are co-organising the second “Polish women on strike” protest (second black Monday). This interview was originally published on the website of the European Greens.

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Source: Green European Journal

26.10.2016

Polish women's strike

Nigeria: Law Increasing Unsafe Abortions-Gynaecologist

25 October 2016
Daily Trust (Abuja)
By Romoke W. Ahmad

Ilorin — A Gynaecologist with the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Dr Jimoh Olarewaju Saheed has said that the restriction law on abortion in the country has led to an increase in unsafe abortion as quacks and even some qualified doctors do it in places that lack basic medical centres.

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Source: AllAfrica

25.10.2016

72% of Russians Against Abortion Ban – Poll

Oct. 25 2016 — 15:32
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Seventy-two percent of Russians are against a total ban on abortion, which is three percent more than last year, a poll published by the state-run pollster VTsIOM revealed on Tuesday. Only eighteen percent of respondents – same amount as in 2015 – believe such a ban should be instituted, the study showed.

The number of Russians that are against excluding abortion from the state-funded health insurance, has also grown from 59 percent in 2015 to 70 percent in 2016. At the same time, the number of people who think that abortion should not be a state-funded procedure, lowered from 25 percent in 2015 to 21 percent in 2016.

Nine percent of female respondents said they had an abortion. More than half of the respondents – 51 percent – believe that poor financial conditions are the main reason why women resort to abortion.

The poll was conducted between Oct. 15 and 16 in 46 Russian regions among 1,600 respondents. The margin of error does not exceed 3.5 percent.

Source: Moscow Times

25.10.2016