.... to wonder why the world doesn't know that the Polish govt are trying to ban abortion?

[ChocolateForAll]

This came up in my FB news feed. Appalling. Has anyone else heard about this? How is this not common knowledge?

[WinchesterWoman]

Because men dictate the news agenda? There's been a thread in feminism and ideas for action. It's bloody awful.

[megletthesecond]

There's a petition link somewhere.

[PotteringAlong]

There's a thread in chat. Hang on...

[PotteringAlong]

it's here

[60sname]

I just checked and it has been on the BBC, the Guardian, the Mail and the Independent today, as well as ABC News, the Washington Post and Yahoo News, to name a few

[MatildaOfTuscany]

It's been on the BBC and in the Guardian and Telegraph today (and on and off for the last week or so), so no cover-up.

BBC article

Guardian article

Telegraph article

But totally agree that it's absolutely shocking. Abortion (except in the case of rape, incest or risk to the life of the mother, or the foetus being unviable) has actually been illegal in Poland for over a decade now (with the result that there are illegal abortions running into the 100s of thousands there, I think, if I'm remembering the figures correctly), but what's new about this bill is it would introduce prison sentences of up to 5 years for women who had abortions, and there's also the concern that the onus would be on the woman to prove that she'd suffered a spontaneous miscarriage rather than an abortion, which in early pregnancy is impossible to do - medically, the aftermath of the two events looks exactly the same.

[NerrSnerr]

The world does know. I have seen it on various news sites and on one of the rolling news channels this morning.

[BarbarianMum]

Much of the world lives in countries where abortion is illegal so I can't see them being very interested tbh.

If you mean why don't more people in Europe

[BarbarianMum]

...know, then it must be because they don't follow the broadsheet press because there has been quite a bit of coverage.
It is awful though and I'd urge people to sign the petition.

[MatildaOfTuscany]

Linked to on one of the other threads, but this is a great article - pointing out, with reference to the WHO statistics, that making abortion illegal does not reduce the rate of abortion in countries, it merely increases the number of women dying from botched backstreet abortions. In fact the countries with the lowest abortion rates in the world are the ones in Western Europe with easily accessed, legal abortion - for the simple reason that they also tend to have readily available, effective and cheap contraception too.

[MatildaOfTuscany]

Linked to on one of the other threads, but this is a great article - pointing out, with reference to the WHO statistics, that making abortion illegal does not reduce the rate of abortion in countries, it merely increases the number of women dying from botched backstreet abortions. In fact the countries with the lowest abortion rates in the world are the ones in Western Europe with easily accessed, legal abortion - for the simple reason that they also tend to have readily available, effective and cheap contraception too.