France moved last week to offer free contraception to girls and women under 25, in a sign of Europe’s generally liberal approach to reproductive rights. But divides remain, with Poland recently moving in the opposite direction.
Abortion rights campaigners argue it will mean fit and healthy women who want a baby being forced to give birth to children with profound mental and physical disabilities.
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, described by political scientists as a far-right populist party, was pressured into the harsh 2020 abortion law change by ultraconservative parties and campaign groups, according to Carolin Heilig, an expert in Eastern European politics at University College London.
Nationalist politics, which have thrived in Poland in recent years, are part of why abortion is considered so taboo.Poland is a secularizing country however, Heilig points out, with opinion polls showing only 10 percent of people support a complete abortion ban. The campaign for liberalization could gain ground, she said, if the issue was framed as a question of protecting women’s health — a tactic that won over voters in Ireland, including practicing Catholics.
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