By Dominika Szarek

Writing about Poland’s reproductive rights today means confronting the seismic shifts set in motion in 2015, when the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) came to power. Over eight years, PiS enacted anti-democratic policies, igniting a constitutional crisis over its judicial reforms, and waging a war on “gender ideology”.

Unlike in the US, where far-right attacks on reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights aim to roll back progress, Poland never had many significant victories. Isolated under Soviet rule, it largely missed the second-wave feminist movement. Since 1989, progressive groups have continued to be vilified. Our fight is not to reclaim lost ground but to secure basic rights.

Is Polish society hostile to progressive ideas, or has the ruling class upheld an imaginary vision of a reactionary nation? Under PiS, the answer was clear. Today, the new coalition – led by the neoliberal centre-right Civic Platform – is just as unwilling to advance reproductive rights. Civic Platform pledged to legalise abortion within 100 days, yet the promise still remains unfulfilled, in large part due to its conservative coalition partners, Third Way.

To understand Poland’s position, one must examine the Catholic Church’s historical role. The Church’s power is rooted in Poland’s self-perception as a messianic nation – a Christ of the Nations, crucified by foreign oppression yet destined for resurrection. This myth frames external pressure for liberalisation, whether from the EU or reproductive rights activists, as an attack on national sovereignty.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Matka Polka (Polish Mother) myth, which casts women as reproductive vessels for the survival of the nation. This ideology, entrenched since the partition era in the late 18th Century, still shapes the abortion debate. In 1907, nationalist leader Zygmunt Balicki declared, “Women’s rights are not a national cause” at a women’s congress fighting for suffrage alongside the independence movement. Even then, female citizenship was bound to a nationalist vision shaped by the Catholic Church. That sentiment still defines Poland today, where restricting reproductive freedom is framed as patriotism, and feminism as blasphemous treason against the Catholic nation.

THE CHURCH AS POLITICAL LOBBY

With the emergence of a liberal-democratic and capitalist Poland, the Catholic Church cemented itself as a formidable political lobby. One of its first victories was pressuring the ruling party Solidarity to impose sweeping abortion restrictions. Abortion, which had been legal since 1956, was now only permitted in cases of rape, incest, danger to the pregnant woman’s life, or severe foetal abnormalities. The 1993 Family Planning Law, framed as a “compromise,” was, as feminist scholar Agnieszka Graff argued, merely the institutionalisation of a right-wing status quo – one that imposed some of Europe’s strictest abortion laws.

At the time, 70% of Poles supported abortion access, a fact disregarded in favour of the Church’s influence. The 1993 Act reinforced Catholic dogma, embedding language like “conceived child” in legal texts and replacing “pregnant woman” with “mother of the conceived child,” enshrining the belief that life begins at conception and creating a major obstacle to reproductive freedom.

The Church’s influence also successfully lobbied for compulsory Catholic education in state schools and religious symbols in public spaces. Poland entered the “new world order” already constrained by an institution prioritising historical myths over lived realities. If the 1990s were heralded as the “end of history,” Poland proved otherwise – history was being rewritten to serve a powerful institution.

ANTI-GENDER: A BY-PRODUCT OF NEOLIBERALISM?

Since gaining democratic freedom, Poland has waged a relentless anti-gender war. The debate – Should abortion be legal? Is it unpatriotic to support it? – was a constant refrain throughout my upbringing. While its tone shifted with political changes, one thing was constant: the relentless policing of reproductive rights.

Right-wing populism thrives on an “us versus them” mentality and Poland’s right revived the vision of a Catholic nation under siege. In post-communist Poland, identity became profoundly gendered, exacerbated by neoliberal reforms. As Poland integrated into the EU, the right faced an existential crisis. Could the nation maintain sovereignty while embracing EU values like LGBTQ+ rights and gender equality?

The Church, long positioned as the guardian of national identity, provided the ideological framework for this shift. Its agenda, borrowed in 2008 when PiS went into coalition with the League of Polish Families (LPR), was fully weaponised in 2015 to wage a full-scale anti-gender war.

Who were the enemies? Anyone rejecting the patriarchal model of Polish identity. Between 2008 and 2015, the right made it clear: feminists and LGBTQ+ individuals were not real Poles. The rhetoric became increasingly violent, aiming not just for exclusion but subjugation – to remind them of their place in a Catholic stronghold defying the so-called “infidel elites” of the EU.

The coalition government, including then-Education Minister Roman Giertych, compared gay people to paedophiles and framed abortion as an EU plot to erase Polish identity. This rhetoric resurfaced in 2015 – only this time, it took a lethal form. PiS secured both the presidency and a parliamentary majority, ensuring the war on gender would be waged with unprecedented force.

LIFE UNDER PiS

Once PiS secured a majority in 2015, they sought to weaken institutions designed to keep the government in check. One target was the Constitutional Tribunal, which ensures that executive policies comply with the Constitution. PiS disregarded the appointment of judges elected by the previous opposition government and instead filled the court with their own party-aligned judges. This court-packing enabled them to install Julia Przyłębska as the Tribunal’s President (Chief Justice). Upon her appointment, Przyłębska altered the composition of panels in pending cases, ensuring that politically sensitive rulings were decided by PiS-aligned “quasi-judges”.

PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński viewed Poland’s previous abortion compromise as a “mistake,” arguing that it was being exploited to promote eugenics. After failing to tighten abortion laws in 2016 –when the attempt triggered the nationwide Black Umbrella Protest – PiS ultimately succeeded in 2020. Przyłębska’s appointment played a crucial role in this process, as she ruled that abortion in cases of foetal defects was unconstitutional, effectively making abortion entirely illegal. In response, the Constitutional Tribunal became widely known as the “Constitutional Tribunal of Julia Przyłębska,” reflecting its transformation into a partisan tool used to enforce Catholic fundamentalism.

This decision sparked the 2020 October All-Poland Women’s Strike, one of the largest anti-government mobilisations since 1989. The protests were not limited to street demonstrations; activists directly confronted the Church, often dressed as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale , making a powerful statement against the Church’s grip on politics turning Poland into Gilead.

The scale and intensity of the protests drew both domestic and international attention. The pressure forced PiS representatives to respond, leading to one of the most chilling moments in modern Polish history: a recorded video speech by Kaczyński, broadcast on PiS channels. In it, he framed the protests as an existential threat, declaring, “We must defend the Polish Church”. Portraying the movement as an attack aimed at destroying Poland, he asserted that this “war” had to be won. He insisted that PiS was the sole authority on legal matters – rejecting their rule, he claimed, was akin to rejecting Poland itself and the moral authority of the Church.

A NEW GOVERNMENT

The protests had a big impact on the outcome of the October 2023 election. According to data collected during the demonstrations in 2020, 73% of responders did not support the abortion ban, and as many as 57% of Poles supported abortion on demand in 2020 and 2023. These statistics suggest a completely different understanding of Polish nationhood to the official, right- wing script.

2023 brought a victory for the coalition government, composed of Civic Platform, Third Way and New Left. They defeated PiS, who had sought to form a coalition with another far-right party, Konfederacja (Confederation).

At 74.4% turnout was the highest since 1989. In a joint manifesto, both the Left and the centrist Civic Platform (led by Donald Tusk) promised 100 policies for their first 100 days in office; one of these policies promised “abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy being legal, safe, and available,” as well as simplifying the gender-recognition process for trans people and introducing same-sex civil partnerships.

The coalition is dominated by the centre rather than the left, however, and the presence of Third Way, in particular, which defines itself as ‘Liberal Conservative’, has been an obstacle. The party’s rhetoric is more liberal than PiS, but politically it is a carbon copy, seeking to maintain the Church’s influence in politics.

Third Way co-leader Władysław Kosniak Kamysz stated immediately after the election that matters of “worldview” should not be included in a coalition contrac, by which he meant that reproductive and LGBTQ rights were off the table.

The formal coalition agreement is vague on the subject of reproductive rights, committing to “strengthening the rights of women […] by invalidating the 2020 Constitutional Tribunal Ruling. Women have a right to decide for themselves.” However, no explicit mention is made regarding Civic Platform’s promises that 12-week abortion on demand will be legal in Poland or that emergency contraception will also be free and available without a prescription.

The new left party Razem (Together) has now resigned from the government and from the Left parliamentary grouping, citing clashes over their proposed policies for the coalition agreement being ignored, including on abortion. Overall, excitement for the new government has withered.

WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW?

We are still trapped in the same debate we have been having since 1989. Tusk’s promises – abortion reform, separation of Church and state –have amounted to nothing. Abortion remains illegal, and the 2020 ruling is still in place. Tusk insists that abortion is an “objectively difficult decision” and that legal changes require time.

Time for what? More women to die? Since the ruling, multiple women have died because doctors, fearing prosecution, have refused to perform life-saving abortions. At a protest in Kraków, we marched for Dorota T., who lost amniotic fluid at 22 weeks. There was no chance of delivering a healthy baby, yet doctors told her to lie down and wait for the fluid to return. This medieval “treatment” failed, and she died of septic shock.

In 2021, Izabela, a 30-year-old woman, died in almost identical circumstances. Knowing her fate, she texted her mother from the hospital: “Thanks to the abortion law, there’s nothing they can do.” At least six women have officially died due to the ruling, but the actual number may be higher. Ironically, Dorota and Izabela were already mothers, leaving their children orphaned.

Some minor progress has been made in contraception access – specifically, emergency contraception. While Plan B (the morning-after pill) is available over the counter in the UK, Poland required a prescription from 2017 onward, making it the worst-ranked country in Europe for contraceptive access. In 2024, the Ministry of Health allowed people aged 15 and older to obtain Plan B without a prescription, but pharmacists can refuse to provide it. Only 850 pharmacies – just 10% nationwide – have opted in.

Meanwhile, the Church maintains its grip on public discourse. Third Way co-leader Szymon Hołownia recently endorsed a proposal from the Church for compulsory religion classes in schools, claiming children need “education and values.” Civic Platform’s Rafał Trzaskowski, now running for president, recently stated that “according to the law, there are only two genders.”

The left is divided and on the back foot. While the majority of Razem left the government and ended the party’s membership of the wider Left grouping, five of its MPs split and stayed in the government. These included Daria Gosek-Popek, who I voted for in 2023, and Magdalena Biejat, the co-leader. They say that they want to continue to influence government policy from the inside, but so far nothing has changed. The departure of Razem risks creating an echo chamber for the centrist-dominated Catholic coalition.

THE BATTLE AHEAD

Nothing will change as long as the Church’s grip on politics remains intact. True change can only come from the left – at this moment, that means Razem.

Poland’s history within the Soviet bloc has left deep scars, fuelling a widespread mistrust of anything associated with socialism. This legacy distorts public perception, allowing neoliberalism to thrive. At the same time, the Church continues to impose its rigid, patriarchal values – eroding workers’ rights and enforcing gender essentialism under the guise of tradition. It’s a perfect synergy, creating fertile ground for authoritarianism.

With the global rise of the far right, worsening economic inequality, and a failure to enact real systemic change, Poland risks once again falling into the hands of PIS and Konfederacja. And if that happens, the grip of reactionary politics may become truly indestructible.

So, we fight. Because, in the end, what else do we have?