Fight like a girl (in Poland)
If you’d like to support the fight for women’s reproductive rights in Poland, consider donating to Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet, a grassroots organization devoted to that purpose.
The thing I remember the most from my first week after moving to Ireland was the surprise sight of a group of Polish women protesting on the streets of Dublin. It was fall of 2016 and Polish conservative government, egged on by a sectarian Christian think tank Ordo Iuris, was trying to push through further restrictions to an already draconian abortion law. A wave of protests spread first across the country and then to Polish communities across the world. On Monday, October 4th, thousands of Polish women went on strike, refusing to work, professionally or domestically. The so called Czarny Protest (Black Protest) has become one of the largest and most significant social movements in modern Poland. And it worked. Faced with enormous backlash, the government shelved the cruel bill.
Not for long. The story repeated itself the following year and is repeating itself now. The conservative and male-dominated ruling party (76% of their MPs are men), PiS, weaponized the pandemic against women. With the country in lockdown, they once again tried to push a restrictive abortion bill through the parliament. Under the changes championed by anti-choice organizations and PiS, one of only three exceptions allowing for abortion would be removed from the law: life-threatening fetal abnormalities. That one exception, however, is the reason for more than 99% of legal abortions in Poland and the bill is just a roundabout way to completely prohibit abortion. But even amidst a health and economic crisis, Polish women are fighting back. The Black Protest lives on in unconventional ways, demanded by the unconventional times.
Unlike in 2016 and 2017, when tens of thousands of Poles took to the streets in the country and abroad, regular protests were not an option this time. But that didn’t deter people. On the contrary: it made them come up with ways of civil disobedience that didn’t put fellow citizens at risk. Even under siege, Polish women showed more compassion and dignity than the government.
Unable to form mass protests, activists turned grocery lines into platform for their discontent, standing two meters apart but carrying posters, umbrellas, and coat hangers. Unable to march, they drove. Two days before the bill went to the floor, a cavalcade of cars covered in pro-choice posters and stickers blocked a roundabout in the heart of Warsaw. Many of the protesters were fined for participating. People put up signs in storefronts, stuck them to walls, and hung them from balconies. Protesters also took over the digital space. In the days leading up to the vote in the parliament, frames created by Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet (Polish Women’s Strike) adorned profile pictures all over Facebook and #piekłokobiet (women’s hell) was trending on Twitter, while local organizers held live streams to coordinate the efforts.
Lockdown was not enough to silence Poles. Despite PiS reaching new heights of cruelty by trying to use the pandemic against their own citizens, women responded so fiercely that the party had no choice but to back off. The abortion bill went to the floor last week and PiS used their majority to keep it alive, but didn’t dare force it through. It was sent for consultation to the parliamentary Health Committee, where it will stay until the conservatives in power find another opportune moment to continue their war on women. Which is only a matter of time.
Arguments for legal and accessible abortion are numerous and everyone knows them. Conservatives know them, too. They know legal abortion puts women’s agency and health first and that’s exactly what they oppose. For them, punishing women is the point because cruelty is the entire political identity of conservatism. Polish women find themselves dragged into a fight against that cruelty year after year. And the more the government tries to silence them, the louder they respond.
Please be aware of this struggle. Women’s reproductive rights are under constant threat in Poland. It takes continuous effort of dozens of organizers and thousands of regular citizens to stop the government from taking women’s rights away.
If you can, please consider donating to Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet here.
