‘Feminist drone’ delivers abortion pills to Poland

Published June 28, 2015
Slubice (Poland): An abortion drone transporting packets of pills from Frankfurt,  Germany, on Saturday.—AFP
Slubice (Poland): An abortion drone transporting packets of pills from Frankfurt, Germany, on Saturday.—AFP

WARSAW: Feminist activists on Saturday sent a drone from Germany to Poland carrying abortion pills to highlight the staunchly Catholic country’s restrictive abortion laws.

The pills are not available in Poland and Jula Gaweda of the feminist organisation Feminoteka said that two Polish women — who were not pregnant — swallowed them as part of the “symbolic” stunt organised by Dutch pro-choice campaign group Women on Waves. “The operation went well,” Gaweda said.

“It’s a symbolic operation designed to show that just a few kilometres (between the take-off and the landing site) can be a gulf in terms of respect for women’s rights, reproductive rights which are human rights,” she said, adding that the pills were provided by a Dutch gynaecologist.

Activists launched the drone in the German city of Frankfurt an der Oder, flying it over the river to the bordering Polish town of Slubice.

A dozen anti-abortion protesters gathered at the landing site and gave out plastic foetuses to the pro-choice activists, Gaweda said, adding that several plainclothes police officers attended the event without intervening.

Poland, whose population is 90 per cent Catholic, only allows abortion within 12 weeks of pregnancy in cases of rape or incest, or 24 weeks in cases of irreversible foetal malformation or a threat to the mother’s life.

After 24 weeks of pregnancy, the procedure is allowed on a case-by-case basis if the mother’s life is at risk.

The government did however recently authorise the morning-after pill.

Women on Waves has over the years sent “abortion boats” to countries including Ireland, Portugal and Spain to provide women with free treatment that circumvents strict abortion laws.

The arrival of one of these boats in Poland in 2003 prompted a wave of protests, while ultra-Catholic newspaper Nasz Dziennik branded the drone delivery a “drone of death” ahead of its landing.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play

Opinion

Editorial

Back in parliament
Updated 27 Jul, 2024

Back in parliament

It is ECP's responsibility to set right all the wrongs it committed in the Feb 8 general elections.
Upholding rights
27 Jul, 2024

Upholding rights

EVEN a perceived threat to civil rights and freedom of expression undermines democracy; it impedes the enforcement ...
Brutal crime
27 Jul, 2024

Brutal crime

THE horrific incident of a woman allegedly gang-raped in front of her husband and three-year-old daughter near...
Judicial constraints
Updated 26 Jul, 2024

Judicial constraints

The fact that it is being prescribed by the legislature will be questioned, given the political context.
Macabre spectacle
26 Jul, 2024

Macabre spectacle

Israel knows that regardless of the party that wins the presidency, America’s ‘ironclad’ support for its genocidal endeavours will continue.