Lodz (Poland): Demonstrators hold a protest in a cathedral against a ruling last week by Poland’s constitutional tribunal that imposed a near-total ban on abortion.—Reuters
Lodz (Poland): Demonstrators hold a protest in a cathedral against a ruling last week by Poland’s constitutional tribunal that imposed a near-total ban on abortion.—Reuters

WARSAW: Women’s rights activists furious over a tightening of Poland’s already restrictive abortion law staged protests outside and inside churches on Sunday, disrupting Masses and finding themselves confronted with accusations of barbaric behavior.

At the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, a group of far-right nationalists blocked stairs leading to the entrance. When one woman managed to push her way through, the nationalists grabbed and threw her on the pavement.

A video posted from the northern Polish city of Szczecinek showed young women surrounding a priest and yelling at him to Go back to the church and to F- off.

The actions on Sunday follow a ruling on Thursday by Poland’s constitutional court that declared that aborting fetuses with congenital defects is unconstitutional. Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, and the ruling will result in a near-complete ban on abortion.

The scene of angry young women entering churches and confronting priests with obscenities signals a dramatic historical change in Poland, where the Roman Catholic Church has been venerated for centuries as the highest authority and where such events would have been unthinkable not so long ago.

The Catholic Church earned respect during the communist era for supporting pro-democracy dissidents in their struggle for freedom, and the late Polish pope St. John Paul II is held up as a national hero.

But today, Poland’s Catholic church is often viewed by liberal Poles as a reactionary force standing on the side of the country’s right-wing government.

The events on Sunday marked a further escalation of a cultural war in Poland as women’s and LGBT rights activists have increasingly turned to more radical protest methods after feeling that years of lobbying for greater rights have not brought the desired results.

A young woman in one Warsaw church stood near the altar with a sign that said Let’s pray for the right to abortion.

An LGBT rights group, Grupa Stonewall, posted a video showing people protesting in a church in the western Polish city of Poznan, chanting We’ve had enough! Churchgoers replied by chanting Barbarians! There were also account of churches being spray-painted with slogans and the phone number to an organisation that helps Polish women seeking abortions abroad or abortion pills.

Some Poles argued on Twitter that people should not bring politics into churches. Others said that Poland’s powerful Catholic Church was the first side to get involved in politics by pushing for a total abortion ban and supporting the country’s right-wing government and even far-right organisations in some cases. Polish media accounts of the day also reflected the deep divide.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2020

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