On the Repeal of Abortion in Poland

Capitalism cannot be reformed

At the end of January in Poland, the constitutional court confirmed the ban on abortion, except in cases of incest, rape or danger to the life of the mother, as not conforming to the articles of the Basic Law on the protection of the life of the unborn. Ir was all decided democratically, perfect and within the rules, so therefore, it became illegal to terminate a pregnancy in the case of serious and fatal malformations of the fetus or when a death of the newborn is inevitable. The bill originated with the majority Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice Party or PiS), whose orientation is „right-wing“, „socially conservative“ and „sovereignist“.

The new abortion law is worse than the previous one, which was one of the most restrictive in Europe, but allowed for abortion in cases of fetal malformations.

Even before the law came into force, an estimated 200,000 abortions were carried out illegally in Poland every year, obvisously with serious risks for the woman. Another 120,000 abortions took place in one of Poland’s neighboring countries where abortion is legal: Germany, Czechia, and elsewhere in Northern Europe. Covid travel restrictions have made it almost impossible even for middle-class women, who can afford, unlike the proletariat, abortion in neighboring countries in minimum health security.

Since the ruling on October 22, street protests in Poland have never stopped. The Strajk Kobiet („Women’s Strike“) movement has organized several demonstrations in recent months. On the day the law came into force, thousands poured into the streets and a new national demonstration was called on January 29.

Since October, police in Warsaw have attacked the demonstrations with batons, tear gas and mass arrests. This brutality has continued in the following months.

As well we know, the demands of women organized in interclass feminist movements, i.e. led by the bourgeoisie, again, will result in nothing. Or, at most, a few crumbs which can be taken back at an opportune moment as well as serving as a political distraction.

The Polish government is accused of being „right-wing“ and „clerical“. But the condition of women in capitalism in all countries and cultures is everywhere threatened, kept in a condition of personal and economic inferiority and the first victim of the harassment and abuse of the present social regime, especially when it is in the grip of its crises.

As we wrote in our work „Communist Revolution and the Emancipation of Women“ in 1979: „In the socialist State women will be free to have children or not to have children, they will not be forced to abort or give birth as in bourgeois society (…) In communism the bourgeois family will be extinguished and replaced by community life in all its forms. Children will no longer weigh on mothers, mothers will be able to stay with their children if they want, finally expressing an authentic maternal feeling, as no longer produced by selfishness towards their offspring, no longer deformed by the need to starve other people’s children to feed their own“.