Abstract

2016 has been a busy year for sexual rights and reproductive health activists in Eastern and Southern Europe. Whilst in Romania the biggest civic legislative proposal since 1989 gathered over 3 million signatures to redefine the definition of family in the constitution to make it explicit that marriage is between a man and a woman, the Polish government has been focusing on restraining even further the abortion law. Despite the Polish parliament’s vote against the bill on total ban on abortion in October, at the beginning of November the parliament adopted the new ‘For Life’ bill. The bill includes payments aimed at reducing abortions. It encourages women to deliver a terminally ill or permanently damaged infant for an allowance worth 4000PLN (around 1000EUR).

Join our salon talk this Thursday to discuss the politics of choice in Eastern and Southern Europe and how governments (and civil society) continue to push their anti–sexual and reproductive health and rights agendas. We will be joined by Dr. Marcin Smietana, Dr. Robert Pralat, and Dr. Katie Dow from the Reproductive Sociology Research Group.

Suggested reading: Why the Rise of the European Right Spells Doom for Reproductive Health https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/why-the-rise-of-the-european-right-spells-doom-for-reproductive-health

Polish Women Protest Total Abortion Ban by Not Going to Work http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-02/black-monday-as-polish-women-strike-against-total-abortion-ban

Why would Poland make its already strict abortion law draconian? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/04/18/why-would-poland-make-its-already-strict-abortion-law-draconian/