(Agnieszka Graff) Religious conservatives across Europe will be watching the outcome closely. The crowd was an estimated 55,000 strong — most of the protesters were dressed in black, most of them were young women.

They marched through central Warsaw on March 23 to protest against the parliament’s decision to proceed with an almost total ban on abortion. It had all happened before, in October 2016 — one of this protest’s hashtags was #dejavue. But this time it felt different: angrier, darker, more politically radical, and openly aimed at the Catholic Church. The protests testify not just to the power of the Polish women’s movement, but to a profound change in attitudes. This time it is not just abortion rights that are at issue. Polish women have seen the broader picture.
First, a few facts. Poland already has some of the strictest rules on abortion in the world. The procedure is allowed in only three circumstances: pregnancy from rape or incest; danger to the woman’s life or health; or severe foetal damage. Stop Abortion, the proposed law that has sparked the protests, would strike out that last exception. But, since 95 per cent of legal terminations in Poland happen under the foetal damage rule, it would amount to a total ban.
If passed, the law would force women to give birth not only to disabled children, but also to terminally ill babies who would die soon after birth. Doctors would stop offering prenatal testing for fear they would be accused of facilitating abortion.
All this was true in 2016. What makes the current scenario different is direct political pressure from the Catholic Church, which supports the ban. First the Polish Episcopate appealed to parliamentarians to consider the ban, then it thanked them for doing so. The general public heard the bishops give instructions to politicians and watched the politicians meekly obey. This spectacle of political submission is what has brought the angry crowds to the streets.
The banners were radical: “I decide about religion, not religion about me”; “My uterus is not your chapel”. The church has revealed itself as a rigid, ideological and cruel institution that disregards the suffering of women and living children. People have had enough. A religious friend posted on Facebook: “I am a Catholic woman, not a slave.”
Poles take to the streets against stricter abortion laws
Polls confirm this profound change in attitudes. Most Poles still regard the church in a positive light, but this group has shrunk from 61 per cent to 54 per cent in the past six months. Politicians make deals in the presence of church authorities; new buildings and highways are blessed. Bishops and priests have close ties with those in power and use them for their benefit. Currently, the church supports the ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice, and society knows it. Only 30 per cent of Poles perceive the church as neutral, according to a June 2017 poll by Ipsos for OKO.press.
It is widely believed in the west that, because Poland is a Catholic country, restrictions on abortion must be universally supported. This is not so. In January, 37 per cent of Poles supported the liberalisation of the present abortion law, 43 per cent supported the status quo. Only 15 per cent backed a total ban.
Why should this concern readers outside Poland? What happens here is part of a global struggle. The Stop Abortion law was drafted by ultra-conservative lawyers from an organisation called Ordo Iuris, which is connected to like-minded (and well-funded) networks globally. Anti-choice groups like this one are behind the wave of mobilisations against “gender ideology” that have swept Europe in recent years.
Poland matters to these groups strategically as a place to start a global crusade to ban abortion. Poland is special because here, thanks to the enormous political influence of the church, success seems politically feasible. To them, this is just the beginning.
The writer works at the American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw. Agata Szczesniak of OKO.press also contributed to this article.