Culture

Thousands Of People Protested A Proposed Ban On Abortion In Warsaw And Shut The City Down

25,000 people marched in black, many refusing to go to work or school in protest.

by Sinead Stubbins  4 October 2016

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Right now in Poland there’s a national debate raging over a proposal to completely ban all abortions in the country. Under the ban, Polish women could even be jailed for miscarrying during pregnancy.

How did this happen? Well, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party put forward a measure to Polish parliament to eliminate Poland’s already strict abortion laws. Currently a woman can only access those services in the case of rape, incest, threats to the pregnant woman’s health, or if the child is thought to be disabled. If the proposal passes, women found to have had an abortion could face a five-year prison sentence.

Today an estimated 25,000 people marched in black in Warsaw’s city centre — protests were simultaneously occurring in 60 other cities across Poland and in Europe, which The Independent speculated would attract six million people — to criticise this proposal and attempt to disrupt the running of the city. As part of ‘Black Monday’ some women vowed to withdraw their labour in protest and refused to go to work, and several companies pledged that they would stop business for the day.

Apparently the protest did clog the city centre considerably and supporters were seen serving food to protestors or wearing all black to work in solidarity. Protests also took place in other major European cities, such as Berlin and Belfast.

A recent Ipsos survey found that only 11 percent of the Polish population favoured a total ban on abortion (more than a third of those surveyed thought that abortion should be more widely available). Similar to protests of the criminalisation of abortion in Ireland, religion has played a huge part in the debate in Poland, with 87 percent of nationals identifying as Catholic. Currently in Australia, abortion is the subject of criminal law in all states and territories except the ACT.

It will be interesting to see if the city-stopping protests will have any real ramifications in parliament.

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Image via Twitter.