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Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday that women themselves should have the right to abortion for congenitally damaged fetuses, apparently breaking ranks with a conservative leadership that pushed for a ban that has led to massive street protests.
“It can’t be that the law requires this kind of heroism from a woman,” Duda said in an interview with RMF FM radio.
She spoke after seven straight days of large protests in Poland following a constitutional court ruling declaring it unconstitutional to terminate a pregnancy due to fetal birth defects. The ruling effectively bans almost all abortions in a country that already had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
Czarek Sokolowski / AP
Protesters angered by a new abortion ban confront police near the parliament in Warsaw, Poland.
That ruling has sparked huge protests across the country, and young people have heeded the call of women’s rights activists to take to the streets to defend their freedoms.
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The deep divisions that had long been brewing in Poland are now erupting in the streets.
On Thursday evening, men from a far-right group, the Polish Youth, attacked women participating in protests overnight in some cities, including Wroclaw, Poznan and Bialystok.
Their actions came after Poland’s most powerful politician, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, called on his supporters to take to the streets to defend churches after women disrupted masses last Sunday and painted churches.
Many interpreted Kaczynski’s call as permission for violence against protesters.
Duda’s comments on Thursday stood in stark contrast to his initial reaction last week, when he welcomed the ruling and emphasized his opposition to abortion even when a fetus is irreversibly damaged.
Czarek Sokolowski / AP
People in Poland were left without work and large crowds took to the streets for the seventh consecutive day of protests, enraged by a high court ruling banning abortions in cases of fetal anomalies.
He also pointed to a difference of opinion with Kaczynski on the security issue, saying that the police should have sole responsibility for protecting the streets.
