As protests spread across Poland against the country’s recent nearly total ban on abortion, hundreds gathered near the Embassy of Poland in Kyiv on Oct. 26 to express their support for women in Poland.
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal banned on Oct. 22 pregnancy terminations, which are now only allowed in cases of incest, rape, or if the mother’s health is at risk. This means that abortion in cases of fetal defects or incurable illnesses that threaten the fetus’s life are now prohibited, while around 98% of abortions in Poland happen due to fetal defects.
Women’s rights groups and activists sound the alarm as Poland’s restrictions are now among the tightest in Europe. In Kyiv, the protest attracted hundreds of activists, both women and men, who held signs “My body – my business” and “Legal abortions save lives.”
“The exploitation of sexuality, the deprivation of reproductive rights and the right to one’s own body is violence expressed through power produced by a patriarchal society and an oppressive state,” the organizers of the event wrote on Facebook.
One of the attendees, a member of the Femen movement, stood naked near the embassy. The slogans “My body — my choice” and “Sisters to the arms” were written on her body. She was arrested by the police.
The protest almost got violent when representatives of radical far-right group Tradition and Order joined the rally near the embassy. They protested in support of the abortion ban and, according to the organizers of the rally, tried to block access to the embassy. The police prevented the groups from clashing, they say.
The same protests took place in other Ukrainian cities, including in Lviv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, on Oct. 26.
Vast protests erupted in many Polish cities following the court’s decision. During some of them, on Oct. 23, people clashed with law enforcement, and police officers used pepper spray and physical force to disperse the protests.
“This judgment is the result of a coordinated systematic wave of attacks on women’s human rights,” global human rights nonprofit Amnesty International said in a statement on Oct. 22.
The organization also highlighted that banning abortion will only make it more dangerous, as women will be forced to seek medical help abroad or turn to unsafe methods of pregnancy termination such as drinking toxic liquids or inflicting injuries on themselves.
Even before the ban, Poland already had some of the toughest restrictions on abortion in Europe, causing over 200,000 pregnancy terminations to be performed illegally or abroad, according to the BBC.
