Jurek Wejwoda
Ankündigungstext deutsch
Since the de facto complete abolition of the right to abortion on 22.10.2020, Poland has been one of the most rigid states in Europe in the area of reproductive rights. The verdict of the Constitutional Court, controlled by the ruling PiS party, was the temporary endpoint of a development that already began with the election victory of the PiS on 25.10.2015. Already one year later, the government tried to push through an amendment to the existing law of 1993 in the Polish parliament.
A protest movement was formed against this, which became known as the Black Protest. A frequently used slogan of this time was the one mentioned in the title “Piekło kobiet – The Hell of Women”. With this slogan, the protest specifically took recourse to the conflicts of the 1920s/1930s when, in Poland, which was once again independent, there were first disputes about the form of abortion law.
The lecture will trace the arc from these first struggles to the current situation, introducing protagonists from both sides and placing them in larger cultural-historical contexts.