Women’s rights activists launch effort to expand abortion rights to EU level

European NGOs said they would launch a new initiative aimed at advancing reproductive rights.

By Lauren Chadwick
March 5, 2024

Women's rights activists across Europe are joining forces to push for a dedicated funding mechanism in the European Union to make sure that women in the bloc have access to abortion.

The movement called "My Voice, My Choice" was launched in Slovenia on Tuesday and brought together activists from several European countries including Spain, Finland, Poland, France, Croatia, and Ireland.

"We are organising at the European level to push the abortion issue forward," Marta Lempart, one of the leaders of the Polish Women's Strike, told Euronews Health ahead of the announcement.

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/health/2024/03/05/womens-rights-activists-launch-effort-to-expand-abortion-rights-to-eu-level

05.03.2024

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8th of March Institute

Doireann Crosson

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Marta Lempart

My Voice My Choice

National Women’s Council of Ireland

Nika Kovač

Polish women's strike

Polish government accused of murder after pregnant woman carrying dead foetus dies

Women’s rights activists took to the streets to protest against the country’s draconian abortion laws

By Matthew Day and Anne Gulland
27 January 2022

Poland’s government is guilty of murder, campaigners said on Thursday following the death of a woman forced to carry a dead foetus in her womb for over a week because of draconian new abortion laws.

The 37-year-old woman, who was carrying twins and was in her first three months of pregnancy, lost one foetus in mid-December but was refused an abortion, according to her family, despite the threat to her health and life. Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/27/polish-government-accused-murder-pregnant-woman-carrying-dead/

Death threats and phone calls: the women answering cries for help one year on from Poland’s abortion ban

As new laws hit the most vulnerable pregnant women in need of care, volunteers struggle to help those unable to access safe abortions

Rosie Swash and Weronika Strzyżyńska in Warsaw
The Guardian
Sun 23 Jan 2022

An Abortion Dream Team member became the first Polish abortion activist to face the prospect of trial in September, after a man notified the police that his wife ordered abortion pills online. The case is ongoing.

Ferenc believes the latest changes did not fully appease the ruling Law and Justice party’s (PiS) religious base. “Before, abortion was not a topic, no one wanted to talk about it. Now the anti-abortion groups on whose support PiS is relying are demanding blood.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/23/death-threats-and-phone-calls-the-women-answering-cries-for-help-one-year-on-from-polands-abortion-ban

POLAND: URGENT SOLIDARITY REQUESTED

Bill banning all abortions falls by large majority, but a second one passed the first round

DECEMBER 3, 2021

International Campaign for Safe Abortion

Polish Women’s Strike activists spilled red paint and left slogans saying
“Don’t ask for my blood Poland” on cardboard outside Polish ruling party (PiS)
offices in different cities in Poland over last weekend in anticipation of the
upcoming week in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, where two
anti-abortion bills are tabled for this week. It’s a Ministry of Health decree
, they have put it on their website until 6 December for comments. The 16-page
text of the government’s abortion bill can be found here in
Polish.

A bill tabled
for 30 November aims to create a Polish Institute of Family and
Demography, led by right-wing fundamentalist parliamentarian Bartłomiej
Wróblewski, the same person who tabled the motion to the Constitutional Court
that resulted in the October 2020 ban on abortion.
Their goal is an increase in Poland’s birth rate, which they hope to achieve by
limiting the number of divorces and creating what they call the “proper social
context”. It allows women to be investigated if they were known to be pregnant
and are no longer pregnant. This bill was passed by only one vote of 205 to
204, with 24 abstentions. It will now go to a committee.

Continued: https://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/news/poland-urgent-solidarity-requested/

Nadia: “There is Hope for a Better Future for Women in Poland.”

June 25, 2021

Nadia believes activism can change the world. Over the last few years in Poland, women’s reproductive choices have been stripped back at an alarming rate. The young activist wants to reverse this erosion of women’s rights by campaigning for better reproductive, labour and social rights across the country. Nadia is painfully aware that in Poland, where public discourse is dominated by men, the belief that “children and young women have no voice” still reigns.

"I wish we no longer had to talk about the wage gap, reproductive rights, the overloading of women with unpaid reproductive work. I want to live in a world where women had freedom of expression and the full right to pleasure on our terms," the activist says.

Continued: https://defendthedefenders.eu/nadia-there-is-hope-for-a-better-future-for-women-in-poland/

After Poland Issued a Near-Total Ban on Abortions, Marta Lempart Has Been on the Front Line of the Protests

BY MIRA PTACIN
February 11, 2021

It’s been called different things: the Coat Hanger Rebellion, Black Protests, Strajk Kobiet, or Women’s Strike. For half a decade, it’s continued to grow louder and stronger. Now, many are calling it a revolution: millions of Polish women, men, and children protesting the government and all-powerful Catholic Church’s continuous attempts at a near-total ban of abortion.

Over the past several years, Poland’s conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) has introduced increasingly draconian restrictions on abortion access in the country. In 2016, a proposal was introduced that would ban nearly all abortions except those necessary to save a woman’s life. The citizens of Poland took to the streets, and the protests had a dramatic impact: The the PiS, which had previously championed the bill, voted the legislation down.

Continued: https://www.vogue.com/article/poland-abortion-marta-lempart

Women’s rights activist charged for taking part in Polish abortion protests

Marta Lempart charged with insulting a police officer among other alleged offences

Maya Oppenheim, Women’s Correspondent
Feb 11, 2021

A woman’s rights activist involved in protests against the widely criticised near-total abortion ban in Poland has been charged.

In recent months Poland has been rocked by the largest protests since the collapse of communism after the government unveiled plans to further tighten already restrictive abortion laws last October - with demonstrations erupting again last month after the court’s justification for the original ruling was enshrined into law.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-abortion-protests-marta-lempart-b1800915.html

Women’s rights activist charged for role in Polish protests

By VANESSA GERA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
FEB. 11, 2021

WARSAW, Poland — A leader of the Polish Women’s Strike, the movement that has led mass nationwide protests against a near total abortion ban in Poland, has been charged with criminal felonies.

The U.S. State Department said it was watching the situation in the allied NATO country “very closely.”

Continued: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2021-02-11/womens-rights-activist-charged-for-role-in-polish-protests

11.02.2021

Featured

News

arresting abortion rights activists

Marta Lempart

Marta Lempart arrest

Ned Price

Polish women's strike

Poland’s abortion rights protesters prepare for revolution

“We’re entering a second stage of the revolution, and everyone’s invited” #12DaysofResistance

Lidia Kurasinska
2 January 2021

“We’re entering a second stage of the revolution, and everyone’s invited,” said Klementyna Suchanow during an online press conference on 22 December, after two months of mass protests organised by the Polish Women’s Strike.

The demonstrations began in response to a ruling that would ban abortion in cases of severe foetal anomaly in October, but they soon took on a broader anti-government sentiment.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/polands-abortion-rights-protesters-prepare-for-revolution/

02.01.2021

Polish women's strike

severe foetal anomaly

Women Strike Back

Turning Polish Society Upside Down

Gabriela Rogowska
9 November 2020

The Polish Constitutional Court’s judgment on legal abortion has brought both women and young people onto the streets. Unleashing dormant energy, the protests have also initiated a discussion about the position of women and youth in Polish society.

As with Mikhail Bulgakov, the inevitable has already happened, Anushka has already spilt the oil, according to one of the already famous protest slogans. Only not everyone has realised it yet.

Continued:
https://visegradinsight.eu/women-strike-back-poland-abortion/

09.11.2020