Thousands of people demonstrate in Poland for the right to abortion

“Don’t touch our bodies.” Thousands of people demonstrated across Poland on Tuesday, July 23, to protest the parliament’s decision to reject a bill to decriminalize assisted abortion. The ruling coalition has pledged to liberalize Poland’s abortion laws, which are among the strictest in Europe. They punish assisted abortion with up to three years in prison.

But the latest attempt to relax those rules failed earlier this month, when lawmakers voted 218-215 to reject a bill to remove the provision banning assisted abortion. Polish women’s rights groups accused the ruling alliance of backtracking on its campaign promises and called for nationwide protests.

In Poland, abortion is only permitted if the pregnancy is the result of sexual assault or incest, or if it poses a direct threat to the mother’s life or health. Rights groups argue that the law has a chilling effect on doctors and has led to the deaths of pregnant women because their pregnancies were not terminated in time.

The Warsaw demonstration was confronted by a handful of anti-abortion activists who, a few meters from the pro-choice rally cordoned off by police, shouted “assassins” to the main demonstration. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk regretted, before Tuesday’s protests, that he had failed to convince those who voted against the bill.

Donald Tusk fired a deputy minister who did not support the bill and called for sanctions against another lawmaker. “I do everything I can to put an end to the hell of these women”he said. Three other bills aimed at facilitating access to abortion are still being debated in a parliamentary committee.