Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

In the Taoiseach’s discussions with the President of the European Council, has the issue of the denial of women’s rights in some EU countries been part of these? As the Taoiseach will be aware there has been a magnificent mass movement of women and young people on the streets of Poland for abortion rights in recent weeks. These protests were provoked when Poland’s constitutional court, stacked with conservative judges, backed by the far-right Law and Justice Party, Pis, Government and the Roman Catholic Church, proposed to tighten Poland’s anti-abortion laws which were already amongst the strictest in all of Europe. The court proposed to rule out foetal anomalies as grounds for abortion, even in cases where the baby would, without question, be born dead. There were 200,000 Polish abortions last year which were either illegal or carried out abroad. Under the court’s proposal all but 30 of the 1,100 abortions legally carried out in Poland last year would be illegal next year. The protest movement was spontaneous and enormous. People took to the streets every day and there were more than 1 million people on the streets on some days. This was the largest demonstration since the end of Stalinist rule more than 30 years ago.

Young women carried placards saying: ”Women’s Hell”, “This is War”, “I wish I could abort my government”. When the protests were taken into the churches to challenge priests who were preaching against women’s rights, the leader of the Law and Justice Party addressed the nation accusing the protesters of wanting to destroy Poland and calling for the churches to be defended at any cost. The address was made against a backdrop of Polish flags and was widely compared to General Jaruzelski’s address to the nation in 1981 when martial law was introduced to clamp down on the Solidarity trade union. Given that the leader of the Law and Justice Party is also in charge of police and security, the speech was rightly and widely criticised for promoting the idea of a violent crackdown, with backup from football hooligans and far-right thugs. Notwithstanding all of this just 15% of the population polled gave their support to the proposed new laws. The protest continued to grow in size and to broaden its demands. It was organised by the All-Poland Women's Strike group. From below protesters start calling for the legalisation of abortion, separation of church and state, increased state spending on health and education and an end to the rule of the far-right government. Groups like Rosa Polska, the sister organisation of ROSA in Ireland, began to raise the idea of a general strike.

These protests have taken place after the Taoiseach’s last formal discussion, I believe, with the President of the European Council but the denial of women’s rights in Poland and in other countries make it inevitable that these types of mass movements can and will occur. This is a live issue in Poland at the moment. Has there been any follow-up at EU Council level in discussing these very important matters?

See this speech in context