Thousands of people protested for the third consecutive night in Warsaw and elsewhere in Poland, after the country’s right-wing government implemented a court order imposing an almost total ban on abortion.
Protesters challenged coronavirus restrictions and sub-zero temperatures to pull themselves together after the controversial trial gained legal force on Wednesday.
In Warsaw, they waved Polish and gay flags with the rainbow and brandished the red lightning symbol worn by the Women’s Strike – the main organization behind the protests.
“My body, my choice”, “The revolution has a uterus” and “You have blood on your hands” said some of the protest signs.
Some of the participants on Friday also wore green scarfs around their necks – the symbol of abortion rights activists in Argentina, where abortion was legalized last month.
Thousands also took to the streets in Warsaw and other major cities on Wednesday, and on Thursday several protesters were arrested after entering the perimeter of the constitutional court, which issued the decision.
The verdict means that all abortions in Poland are now banned, except in cases of rape and incest, or when the mother’s life or health is considered at risk.
The ruling determined that abortion in cases of fetal abnormalities was incompatible with the constitution.
Predominantly Catholic Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws. There are less than 2,000 legal abortions there each year and women’s groups estimate that an additional 200,000 women have abortions illegally or abroad.
The government said the ban would suspend “eugenic abortions”, referring to the interruption of fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome, but human rights groups said it would force women to have unviable pregnancies.
The decision came out for the first time in October, but the government postponed its formalization amid mass protests that quickly adopted broader anti-government slogans.
Ludwik Dorn, a commentator who wrote in the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, said the government probably decided to publish the decision now to ensure that the protests “end” before anti-government anger escalates over the treatment of the coronavirus pandemic and the launch of the vaccine.
“Now was the least bad time,” he wrote.
Dorn also said that the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party may be waiting for divisions between opponents of the decision – those who want broader rights to abortion and those who support the previous status quo.