Protest on Poland's "Black Tuesday"
Thousands of Polish women continued their "Black protest" against the government on Tuesday. Dressed in black they repeated their demonstration of a year ago and called on Poland to ease its abortion laws, which are more stringent than those of most other EU countries. Doctors have the right to refuse a patient's request for an abortion and pharmacies may refuse to sell the "morning after" pill for reasons of conscience. And a draft law foresees even harsher legislation. The country's press is divided over the issue.
Many good reasons for the protest
The protests of a year ago prevented the worst from happening but didn't leave Polish women in a good position, the left-liberal news magazine Polityka comments:
“The PiS was so shocked by the dimensions of the demonstration back then that it suspended its work aimed at toughening the already draconian abortion law. But beyond that the protests didn't achieve anything else. ... With the exception of Hungary the 'morning after' pill is available in all EU countries without a prescription. In Poland that was also the case, but only briefly, because Health Minister Radziwiłł apparently decided that Polish women are dumber and would abuse this medication unless they were supervised by doctors.”
People will be calling for assisted suicide next
Marzena Nykiel, editor-in-chief of the pro-government news website wPolityce, criticises the struggle of Polish women against an abortion ban:
“Bearing in mind their sick determination in the fight over the killing of unborn children we can be glad that we're only dealing with a minority here. But one sad question arises: do the many elderly women marching here know that the next thing the left wants to do is demand the right to assisted suicide? After all, if you can kill your own children, why shouldn't you also be able to kill sick, disabled old people?”