Poland’s Parliament should listen to the voices of women across Poland and reject a regressive legislative proposal that would erode reproductive rights, over 200 human and women’s rights groups from across the globe said in a statement today. The Parliament is debating a draft bill entitled “Stop Abortion.” If adopted, this legislation will severely limit the already restricted grounds on which women can lawfully access abortion in Poland. It will place women’s health and lives at risk and violate Poland’s international human rights obligations, the groups said. The statement calls on Polish lawmakers to cease relentless attempts to roll back the reproductive rights of women in Poland and underlines the danger that will be posed to women and girls in Poland if the regressive law is adopted. For press inquiries: Irene Donadio, IPPF EN - 0032 (0)491 719 390 Statement follows: "We are deeply concerned by relentless attempts to roll back the reproductive rights of women in Poland. This week Poland’s parliament is debating a new draft bill entitled “Stop Abortion.” If adopted, this legislation will further limit the already restricted grounds on which women can lawfully access abortion in Poland. It will place women’s health and lives at risk and violate Poland’s international human rights obligations.  We call on Members of Poland’s Parliament to listen to the voices of women across Poland and to reject this regressive legislative proposal and protect women’s health and human rights. Poland already has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws. Abortion is only lawful to safeguard the life or health of women, in situations of severe fetal anomaly or where the pregnancy results from rape or another criminal act such as incest. Even in those situations in which abortion is legal, multiple barriers combine to limit women’s access in practice. The latest “Stop Abortion” proposal seeks to ban abortion in situations where there is a severe fetal anomaly. If the “Stop Abortion” bill is passed it will mean that abortion care will no longer be available to women in Poland when they receive a diagnosis of a severe or fatal fetal anomaly. Official statistics from 2016 show that in practice 96% of legal abortions in Poland are performed on these grounds. Most women in Poland who decide to end a pregnancy resulting from rape or because their health is at risk are unable to access legal abortion care in Poland and must travel outside the country to do so. This bill would further hinder women, particularly those from low-income and rural communities, from accessing safe abortion care. Since 2011, Poland’s government has launched repeated attacks on women’s reproductive rights. In 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016 draft legislative proposals were introduced that contained total or near total bans on abortion. Following massive public protests, such as the Black Protests in 2016, these draft bills were defeated. Prohibiting women from accessing safe, legal abortion violates a number of human rights enshrined in international law, including the rights to life, health and health care, nondiscrimination and equality, privacy, and freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The European Court of Human Rights has previously ruled that the Polish government, in hindering timely access to abortion, has violated women’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. Numerous international human rights bodies, including the UN Human Rights Committee, the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Committee Against Torture, have called on governments to remove barriers to abortion services and ensure access to safe and legal abortion."  The full statement and list of signatories.

IPPF EN is outraged by the Polish authorities’ latest move to limit access to emergency contraception. Last Friday 23rd June, Poland's President Andrzej Duda approved a new law limiting access to the only available emergency contraceptive pill. The law will come into effect next month and will end prescription-free emergency contraception. We condemn this outrageous violation of the private lives and intimacy of women and men. This not only tramples on women’s dignity and autonomy but it clearly aims to bully them into a pregnancy. This is yet another example of reproductive coercion which will affect the lives of countless women and couples in Poland, particularly the youngest, poorest or most isolated. Government-mandated meddling with the reproductive lives of women, men and families is unacceptable. These new restrictions were pushed through in May by Poland's ruling rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party and adopted in the Polish parliament. Polish president, Andrzej Duda, gave his official consent to the law last Friday despite the opposition of women and human rights groups and opinion polls showing most Poles opposed it. This latest move follows an attempt to impose a total ban on abortion and undermine access to assisted reproduction. With this decision, the government blatantly flouts the will of its own people after hundreds of thousands of protesters hit the streets over last year’s proposal in what became known as the ‘Czarny Protest’. On women’s rights within the European Union, we are faced with a dichotomy where girls living in the right place can get free contraception, including over-the-counter emergency contraception, while others face an uphill struggle. In Poland, even a teenage rape victim has to fight to find a doctor who may – or may not - help her. The new Polish law passed by the country’s archaic authorities allows for the potential abuse of power by doctors who may feel that they have a right to judge the sexual lives of women based on their own moral convictions. As Europeans we cannot stand still and watch.

IPPF EN has joined a call to action to support the rights of Polish women, severely threatened by the proposition of a revised anti-abortion law. The draft proposition has been endorsed by the Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and the leader of the governing PiS party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The new proposal would introduce a complete ban on abortion.  The current abortion law in Poland is already one of the most restrictive in the EU, allowing women to terminate pregnancy only in three extreme cases: when her life and/or health are threatened, when the pregnancy is the result of a criminal act, or when the foetus is severely damaged. The draft law will not only introduce a complete ban on abortion but a new category into the criminal code – “prenatal murder” – which will introduce a prison sentence of between three to five years for women, doctors and those helping to perform an abortion. This citizen's initiative is currently awaiting a decision by the President of the Lower Chamber of the Parliament on whether it will be registered. The deadline for this decision is Monday, April 11th. If successful, the “Stop Abortion” committee will then have three months to collect 100,000 signatures to ensure that the law will be debated, and most likely voted on, by the Polish Parliament dominated by PiS. Such a ban would lead to the endangerment of the life and health of women, an increase in maternal mortality and an increase in unsafe and clandestine abortions.The draft law doesn’t make any reference to the protection of a woman’s life, health and wellbeing.  Last weekend’s demonstrations against further restrictions on the right to abortion brought thousands of Polish women and men to the streets of Warsaw and other Polish towns. A big protest in front of the Polish Parliament is due to take place this Saturday, April 9th. To support the call to action, see ASTRA’s Facebook event page: Porozumienie ODZYSKAĆ WYBÓR (Regaining Choice Coalition) where you are encouraged to submit a photo to the event wall.

The messages of solidarity sent to women in Ireland and South America throughout the “Black Protest” clearly indicated that this mass mobilisation against the proposed abortion ban in Poland is not only a Polish matter. If we are truly worried about the ongoing political developments and how will they shape the future of Europe, we must ensure that the gender perspective is taken into account in the current debate. What are the lessons learned from Central and Eastern Europe with regards to women’s rights and what European values are at stake? Anyone who thinks that the rise of opposition to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Central and Eastern Europe is a recent development is sadly mistaken. Since 1989, the status of SRHR and women’s rights in the region has been in permanent crisis. It was one of the most unexpected results of the Soviet bloc’s transition from communism to democracy, yet it was not prominent enough. Of course, Central and Eastern Europe is not a monolith, and the socio-economic and political situations at national level varies - not to mention the division between non-EU and EU countries or the ongoing war in Ukraine, which turned almost 2 million people into refugees. But it is women that have been among the groups most affected by the post-communist transformation in the region. The role of women in a post-Soviet Europe The notion of gender equality was instrumentally used in the Soviet Union to fulfil its totalitarian goals, however it had a substantial impact on women’s lives compared to the pre-war situation in the whole region. Access to education, healthcare services, childcare, abortion and paid maternity leave were widespread and free.  The collapse of the Soviet Union brought back the conservative view on child bearing and a new, enthusiastic belief in the “invisible hand” of the free market economy that led to tax reductions, mass privatisation and marketisation. For women, gender blind policies meant losing not only access to abortion but access to a wide range of social and economic rights. Almost entirely excluded from the mainstream political agenda, women have organised themselves through formal and non-formal forms of participation that is visible in the high levels of feminisation seen in the NGO sector across Central and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, another common characteristic for this region is the precarious situation of women’s organisations, which remain constantly underfunded and without sufficient resources, often operating in a hostile environment. They, however, still provide various services which should be ensured by governments. This is not merely an enormous challenge for influencing national governments and implementing real change locally, but also remains challenging for effective advocacy at European and international levels. While through a global perspective Europe is considered to hold a progressive position on SRHR, for the vast majority of women in Central and Eastern Europe, this is not the reality. A rise of illiberal Democracy Narrowing the discussion to Poland and Hungary, the two major players across Central and Eastern Europe, we see in both countries the rise of illiberal democracy. Andrea Pető from the Central European University and Weronika Grzebalska from Polish Academy of Sciences use a metaphor of the “polypore state” to describe it: “A polypore is a parasitic fungus that feeds on rotting trees, contributing to their decay. In the same way, the governments of Poland and Hungary feed on the vital resources of their liberal predecessors, and produce a fully dependent state structure in return.”. For instance, the Polish government recently announced that a new department will be established to bring NGO’s under centralised control and to decide who will receive state funding, and for what. Already this year, a few Polish women’s organisations working on domestic violence were rejected in the grant-making process in favour of organisations that do not challenge the political status quo.  The illiberal governance poses a serious threat to all kinds of human rights organisations, making them incapable of operating within the existing political structure. The worsening of conditions for women in Central and Eastern Europe have been explained as a political and cultural backlash. Some have ascribed this to a lack of a well-established political culture or a tradition of civil society. However, this year’s events in the Western world (Brexit and Trump’s election), should make us think that the anti-liberal changes are equally endangering women’s rights all over Europe and beyond. Recent attempts to fully ban abortion in Poland saw the mobilisation of various opposition groups to SRHR and women’s rights in Europe. The organisation Ordo Iuris, that prepared the bill on abortion which was later rejected by the Polish parliament under the pressure of the “Black Protest”, is linked to the “One of Us”. “One of Us” is a European Citizen’s Initiative gathering anti-choice organisations from all over Europe. Their ultra-conservative stance against women’s rights is at the same time against European values - encompassing respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. Over the last decade, almost all EU member states within Central and Eastern Europe have struggled with a profoundly divided political establishment and increasing socio-economic inequalities. Many people do not see the EU as a guarantor of a dignified life and the market-driven economy did not bring promised prosperity for all. The side effects of which include a rise in populism and opposition to SRHR, which have instilled hatred in those who feel insecure and excluded. On Human Rights Day, it is crucial to reflect on the strong backlash against women’s rights across Europe. The “Black Protest” was a clear reminder that the situation in Central and Eastern Europe is critical for the advancement of SRHR, not only for women in the region but across the entire continent. The political situation in Central and Eastern Europe also has clear implications on the successful development and implementation of progressive European policies. I strongly believe that our community and the progressive movement will be able to safeguard women’s rights in Europe while pushing for a systematic change. Yet it is absolutely essential that we display solidarity and work together to ensure social justice, both at the local and transnational levels if we are to effect any positive change. By Helena Szczodry, Eurongos