Poland’s population drive puts women on red alert over reproductive rights

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, or PiS, believes it is on a mission to save the soul of the central European nation.

Sparked by the country’s dwindling population and fuelled by far-right nationalism, Poland’s leaders believe only a return to so-called “traditional family values” will cure their various ills.

One of their first attempts to boost the birth rate was the Family 500+ programme, launched in 2016, which gives families 500 Polish zloty (£90) a month for every child under the age of 18. Despite some early success, the initiative hasn’t yielded the baby boom the government was expecting.

Since then attention has turned elsewhere, namely to the issue of women’s reproductive rights.

In October 2020, Poland’s government-controlled Constitutional Tribunal – which is officially an independent body – ruled that abortions in the case of severe fetal abnormalities were unconstitutional. This means abortions are now only permitted in the case of a crime, such as rape or incest, or if the woman’s life is in danger.

The decision led to the nationwide Women’s Strike, which saw thousands of people take to Poland’s streets for weeks. The protests shook the nation while gatherings outside churches by demonstrators and their disruptions of Masses challenged the Catholic consensus that has dominated Poland since the end of communism in 1989.

Although the government condemned the strike and urged its supporters to “defend Polish churches”, the PiS has distanced itself from the issue of abortion, recognising how much it can damage their political fortune.

So when a new bill proposing a total ban on abortion was brought to the Sejm, the country’s lower house, on Wednesday by a citizens’ legal initiative from an anti-abortion group, the government criticised it immediately.

PiS MP Anita Czerwinska said the bill – which would have outlawed abortion as homicide – was “unacceptable” and would lead to “social unrest”. The draft law was rejected by 361 votes to 48 votes late on Thursday, and most of the PiS politicians were against it.

But that doesn’t mean the overall attitude of the PiS towards women and their reproductive rights has changed, activists say.

Just days ago, the Sejm read a bill on the creation of a new ‘Institute of Family and Demography’. According to its official documentation the president of the institute will be able to “demand the initiation of proceedings in civil matters relating to families … concerning the exercise of parental authority and take part in the ongoing proceedings”.

The man tipped to lead this institute is Bartlomiej Wroblewski, a PiS MP and a radical anti-abortion campaigner.

Such an individual having the authority to potentially remove a child from their parent’s care has sparked alarm among Poland’s activist community, which believes Mr Wroblewski could attempt to remove parental rights from LGBT+ parents or target the families of anti-government protest leaders.

Women’s rights campaigners fear the institute will be able to keep a registry of pregnancies and thus be able to target women who are more likely to travel abroad for an abortion.

In a separate matter, plans for Poland’s Ministry of Health to register every pregnancy were exposed on Twitter by an opposition MP in late November.

Although the ministry says registration would only be for medical purposes and is a part of a departmental digitalisation process, women’s rights activists again feel it could become a possible tool for prosecutions in the future.

“This is a terrifying project that shows how consistently Poland’s government strives to control women. Polish citizens are afraid of this systematic ‘belly chasing’ because it’s a clear breach of basic human rights,” Ania Styranczak, an activist from the All Women’s Strike, told The Independent via email.

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In recent decades Poland has become more accustomed to coffins than cradles.

According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, Poland’s population of 37.7 million could shrink to 34.1 million by 2050 and 27.65 million by 2100.

The Central European nation is not alone. Across the region, demographic trends are pointing downwards, sparking a fear of smaller populations that often manifests as a hardline approach to women and their reproductive rights.

“All the talk is about demography, how the population is going down and these [decisions on women’s rights] are attempts to raise it up, and of course all these ideas of how to boost the population are not in line with the 21^st century,” Klementyna Suchanow, a leading women’s rights activist, told The Independent.

“We know that some PiS supporters thought the Constitutional Tribunal was going too far last year,” she added. “Poland is becoming a very secular society and many people are leaving the Church so all that the government is going for is in contrast with what is actually happening in society.”

Defending Christian values has been a common refrain among Europe’s far-right, which seeks to impede women’s rights but in reality, Mass attendance on a weekly basis is falling across the continent.

Poland has one of the world’s biggest generation gaps when it comes to the importance of religion, according to the Pew Research Centre. Data from 2018 found only 16 per cent of adults aged under 40 considered themselves devout, compared with 40 per cent of older people.

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On Wednesday evening dozens of women lead by Marta Lempart, the leader of the Women’s Strike, gathered outside the Sejm to protest against the total abortion bill.

Wrapped in chunky scarves and hats to stave off the bitter cold, they held signs that read “Not One More!”

This was in reference to Izabela, a 30-year-old woman who died in September after being denied a potentially life-saving abortion in the southern town of Pszczyna. She was the first case to be linked to last October’s ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal and many activists fear she may not be the last.