Poland abortion ruling: Police use pepper spray against protesters - BBC News
… The legal challenge against the 1993 law allowing abortion in cases of severe foetal disabilities was launched by MPs from the nationalist Law and Justice party last year. A majority of the court’s judges were nominated by the same party.
Ahead of the ruling, Polish sexual and reproductive health and rights activist Antonina Lewandowska told the BBC that the defence of the 1993 law was based on UN rules outlawing torture.
“It’s inhuman, it’s despicable honestly to make anyone carry a pregnancy to term, especially if the foetus is malformed, and 98% of legal abortions carried out in Poland are due to foetal malformations,” she said.
Poland abortion ruling: Protests spread across the country - BBC News
Thousands of women are protesting against Poland’s new abortion laws in cities across the country.
A court ruling on Thursday banned almost all abortions - with exceptions only for cases of rape, incest, or where the mother’s health is at risk.
Abortions carried out when the foetus is malformed, which accounted for 98% of legal terminations last year, have now been outlawed.
Poland already had some of the EU’s strictest abortion laws.
Fewer than 2,000 legal terminations are carried out each year. But women’s groups estimate that up to 200,000 abortions are either performed illegally, or abroad.
Protests were held in Poznan, Warsaw, Wroclaw and Krakow, among other cities, on Friday, footage from broadcaster TVN showed.
It marked the second night of protests in the country, where strict measures against coronavirus ban gatherings of more than 10 people in most major cities. …
… Magda, a 34-year-old protester in the northern city of Gdynia, told TVN: “Women are not respected in this country. No-one is listening to us.”
“It’s a disgrace from the Polish state towards half of the population, women. We’ll never forget it,” Krystyna Kacpura, head of the Federation for Women and Family Planning, told AFP news agency. …
… Although Poland is one of Europe’s most staunchly Roman Catholic countries, opinion polls suggest there is a clear majority against making the abortion law stricter, the BBC’s Adam Easton in Warsaw reports.
Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, said it was a “sad day for women’s rights”.
Former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk - who now leads the centre-right European People’s Party grouping after presiding over the European Council - also criticised the judgement.
“Throwing the topic of abortion and a ruling by a pseudo-court into the middle of a raging pandemic is more than cynical,” he tweeted.
The Lincoln Project continue their ruthless, guerilla war against Trump and the Republican party with a new devastating billboard in Times Square. The billboard features Ivanka and Jared and the US death count resulting from the Corona virus.
The Kushners responded by threatening to sue. …
Ivanka and Jared Threaten to Sue Lincoln Project Over Body Bags Ad - LP Issues Priceless Response
WTAF else is 2020 gonna throw at us?!
Add a climate change enhanced fungal threat to this season’s flu and COVID outbreaks.
Polish women bring abortion restriction protests to churches
Women’s rights activists in Poland staged protests during Sunday church services in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation against a tightening of the nation’s already restrictive abortion law.
In the fourth straight day of protests, activists held up banners during Masses in some churches, according to Polish media and posts on social media.
A young woman in one Warsaw church stood near the altar with a sign that said “Let’s pray for the right to abortion.”
An LGBT rights group, Grupa Stonewall, posted a video showing people protesting in a church in the western Polish city of Poznan, chanting “We’ve had enough!” Churchgoers replied by chanting “Barbarians!”
Some Poles argued on Twitter that people should not bring politics into churches. Others said that Poland’s powerful Catholic Church had involved itself in politics by pushing for a total abortion ban and supporting the country’s right-wing government and far-right organizations in some cases.
The actions on Sunday follow a ruling on Thursday by Poland’s constitutional court that declared that aborting fetuses with congenital defects is unconstitutional. Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, and the ruling will result in a near-complete ban on abortion. …
