This month, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that abortion in cases involving severe fetal impairment was unconstitutional, ending one of the few exceptions to the country’s extremely restrictive legislation around abortion. The decision prompted not only mass protests and road blockades, but also international pushback from human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as from prominent European politicians. Dacian Cioloş, the head of Renew Europe, a liberal group in the European parliament, called on the Polish government to repeal the ban: “Only women should decide what they can or can’t do with their bodies.”
This is not the first time that extremely socially conservative policies in Central European countries have attracted international criticism. In her 2018 report on the state of rule of law in Hungary, Judith Sargentini, a Dutch Green politician and member of the European parliament, criticized Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government for leaving sexual orientation and gender identity out of the country’s constitutional ban on discrimination. In July this year, members of the European Parliament expressed concerns about Poland’s “de facto criminalization of sexual education, as well as hate speech, public discrimination, violence against women, domestic violence, and intolerant behavior against minorities and other vulnerable groups, including LGBTQ people, and the drastic limitation, coming close to de facto banning of abortion and limiting access to emergency contraceptive pills.” In September, Human Rights Watch called on the EU to defend the autonomy of Hungary’s University of Theatre and Film Arts after the government placed it under control of a private foundation controlled by Orbán’s loyalists, leading to student protests and resignations by academics. And in early November, the Council of Europe is organizing a fact-finding mission (via Zoom) in Poland to investigate discrimination against LGBTQ people.
