Last night, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against stricter abortion laws in the Polish capital Warsaw. According to the organization and the city council, there were a hundred thousand people on the move.
This makes it one of the largest protests in Poland in recent years. There has been daily campaigning for a week. Last Thursday, the Polish Constitutional Court ruled that abortion is only allowed for incest, rape and when the mother’s life is in danger.
Church denies
The protests also targeted the ruling party PiS and the Roman Catholic Church. The latter has stated that it is against abortion, but denies that it has urged the government to tighten up the abortion legislation. In Catholic Poland, surveys indicate that the lion’s share of the population is against the sharpening.
On Friday, President Duda had tried to take the sting out by making proposals to relax the legislation a bit, but protesters were not impressed.
Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski accused the protesters of endangering the health of the population by protesting en masse. In the country, only five people are allowed to meet because of corona. Niedzielski drew a comparison with the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, which he says has also led to an “escalation” of the corona pandemic.
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