The official women's weekly, Kobieta i Zycie, only took up this issue after its office was literally inundated with letters from its readers five weeks after the PAP communiqué and three weeks after the journal of the PAX association — Dobraczynski's political group — divulged the details of the project. Surprising slowness! Meanwhile, the propaganda campaign was in full swing in the churches. During mass the priests called on the faithful to sign the petitions against the 1956 law, and various agitators did not hesitate to proclaim that those who refused to sign were "bad Christians, bad Poles and enemies of human rights".
The social institutions attached to the Church that work among women, the working class and in other social circles employed ideological terrorism, demand. ing the "replacement of the phrase 'termination of pregnancy' — used by the mass media, the health service and in everyday language up until now - by 'the murder of the unborn child"." 6
The model of bureaucratic rule in Poland is at present undergoing a fundamental change. All the previous metamorphoses have been accompanied by attacks on the rights of women acquired during the first period of the rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy, in the years of anti-capitalist transformations and industrialization.
In the 1960s under Gomulka, full employment became in fact a privilege of the male workforce, with the female labour force serving as a reserve. Chronic unemployment among women reappeared and and job discrimination was reintroduced. In the 1970s, in Gierek's time, flexible work1. Financial Times, May 11, 1989. 2. Zycie Warszawy, February 28, 1989. 3. Slowo Powszechne, March 10-12, 1989. 4. Tygodnik Powszechny, March 19, 1989. 5. Tygodnik Powszechny, May 14, 1989. 6. Kobieta i Zycie, April 5, 1989.
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babies?" intelligentsia to the shopfloor.
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POLAND ing was imposed for women and ideological campaigns in favour of a very conservative model of the "socialist family", along with a conception of the role of women close to that of the Church, were introduced? Tyrannizing large areas of social life
Women comprise 43% of wage earners and 37% of the industrial labour force. The double oppression that they face, and the weight of the crisis that falls first on their shoulders makes women a potentially explosive force, escaping the control not only of the bureaucracy, but also of Walesa and the Solidarosc apparatus that he controls. The basis of the "national entente" is the desire of the two partners to suppress such a potential from whichever direction it may come. The criminalization of abortion would be a powerful means for disciplining a large part of the working class and youth. It would make possible "the tyrannizing of large areas of social life" as it was expressed by peace activist Gregorz Francuz in an article entitled "The Inquisition", which appeared in a PPS-RD jour-
In Poland abortion is a mass phenomenon. There are 700,000 abortions every year, according to the official press. According to the Church it could be even more than a million. It is estimated that one in five married women have had an abortion at some time in their lives. Some 62% of terminations are performed on women under 25. Why? At the last congress of the Polish Association of Gynaecologists, the results of a survey of women in the Wroclaw and Lublin regions were presented. It seems that only one woman in 101 uses the pill and only one in 114 an IUD, but that one in every ten has had an abortion. 1° It is the Catholic Church that bears the primary responsibility for this massive recourse to abortion. The Church uses its considerable ideological influence to make systematic propaganda against contraception in a situation where there is no ideological institution, organization or force able to counter the ecclesiastical apparatuses' "sexual education" of the masses, and especially of
In September 1987, for the first time in the history of Poland a textbook on "preparation for family life" dealing with sexual life was introduced in secondary schools. The school students snatched it up. The career of this textbook lasted for two months. Philistines of every hue, inspired by the Church, launched a hysterical campaign, accusing the authors of depraving Polish youth by "inciting them to make love". Apparently, "a sexually excited Polish youth cannot be a hope of the fatherland"! The journal of Dobraczynski's group described the book as "a manual of 1O dered against this "iresponsible publishing masturbation and defloration", and thunInternational Viewpoint #165 • June 12, 1989 blunder". Dobraczynski himself demanded that those responsible for authorizing such a publication should be denounced and measures taken against them by the state authorities.' The affair ended with the shameful capitulation of the education minister. A commission of experts, named by the minister decided that the book should not be used in schools.
The ruling bureaucracy also carries a big responsibility for the massive resort to abortion in Poland. The editors of Kobieta i Zycie write: "It is easier to learn from another woman at work that the pill makes you fat or makes hair grow all over your body than to find a serious leaflet or booklet. It is not only that contraception is not promoted on a mass scale. We do not even have the means of contraception themselves. Good ones that is! The Yugoslav pill, Patentex-Oval, the contraceptive most sought after by both teenage and adult women because it is the least harmful and is sold without prescription, appears occasionally in our pharmacies, although many doctors think that it should be available in every kiosk and drugstore. Instead of this, it goes up in price continually while ago it cost 400 zlotys, now it costs more than 1,000."
"What is the point of condoms that split?"
It is true that there are IUDs to be found in the cupboards of the pharmacies, but not many women buy them, for there is no information about them. The manufacturer does not have the money for publicity and the Ministry of Health claims that it does not have the paper to print booklets and leaflets promoting IUDs or other forms of contraception. Diaphragms can no longer be found because in 1983 the Ministry of Health decided that Poles had no need of them. As for condoms, they were recently tested by the Association for Family Development: "It appears that things are much better today than they were ten years ago, since only one sample in three failed the tests. What is the point of producing condoms that split? They are no use even as balloons!" 12
So much for contraception Polish-style. Under the ideological domination of the Church and the economic management of the bureaucracy, abortion remains the main
The partners at the round-table claim to represent all the forces and milieus of Polish society. Among the 58 participants at the round-table there were...two women. Edmund Osmanczyk, candidate for Senate, considers that the victory of the "constructive opposition" (in the framework of the 35% democracy) depends above all in the women's vote. street, in the shops, on public transport, women — tired, care-worn, the most deeply affected by the collapse of civilization in their own country and household - catch the eye. That is why they will be the decisive factor in the elections." 13
Only 8% of the candidates on the list drawn up by the National Civic Committee of Solidarnosc are women. There are no women workers at all, which is no surprise, since only 4% of the Committee's candidates are workers, although formally the Committee is based on the Solidarnosc trade union! In the outgoing Sejm, chosen by the bureaucracy, women make up 20% of the deputies.
The people around Lech Walesa have taken to identifying themselves with something they vaguely describe as the "best traditions of Polish democracy". Looked at objectively, one of the best of these traditions is certainly that of the struggle waged in the 1930s by the renowned liberal intellectual Tadeusz Boy-Zelenski, against laws that made a mockery of a woman's right to choose. He did not hesitate to call this "the greatest crime perpetrated by the penal code". What attitude does the Civic Committee take on the new attack on women's rights prepared by the Sejm? After a long silence, the spokesperson of the Committee, Janusz Onyszkiewicz replied on May 10: "This question is not a part of our electoral programme. Candidates can put forward their own positions or say nothing". 14
This is no surprise. A number of the Committee members are known for their conservative positions in general, and towards relations between the sexes and the status of women in particular. These include open opponents of the right to abortion, among them Father Jacek Salij, the standard-bearer of the ecclesiastical campaign against the 1956 law.
A strange idea of the secular state
The picture is the same among the Civic Committee's parliamentary candidates. For example, the Catholic intellectual Jozefa Hennelowa, a candidate for the Sejm, is an active supporter of the proposed law. She washes her hands of the issue of the imprisonment of women who have abortions. "It is not the job of the Church or of believers to obtain respect for the divine commandments through penalties inflicted by the secular arm. It is the job of the secular authorities themselves to decide at this level". IS In a few days, Hennelowa herself might be in parliament and therefore part of the "secular arm", whose function is supposed to be to make such decisions. 7. See also the article by Jacqueline Heinen in Alisa Del Re (ed), Stato e rapporti sociali di sesso, Franco Angeli Libri, Milano 1989. 8. Nasz Preglad, May 14, 1989. 9. Zycie Warszawy, April 22-23, 1989. 10. Kobieta i Zycie, December 14, 1988. 11. Polityka, November 7, 1987. 12. Kobieta i Zycie, December 14, 1988 and April 26, 1989. 13. Tygodnik Powszechny, April 9, 1989. 14. Zycie Warszawy, May 11, 1989. 15. Tygodnik Powszechny, April 30, 1989.
Episcopal councillors and members of various pastoral councils, committees and institutions make up 7% of the Civic Committee electoral list. At their head is Wladyslaw Findeisen, president of the Social Council of the Primate of Poland. Some 13% of the other candidates are activists in the Catholic Intelligentsia Clubs. The list also includes candidates representing the "national democratic" right. 16 It is thus possible to predict that deputies and senators elected under the banner of Solidarnosc will significantly reinforce the abortion faction in the new parliament. It is no significant challenge to the 1956 law or the leadership of Solidarnosc, although the majority of its members were Catholic workers.
The ruling bureaucracy has meanwhile been fishing in the troubled waters of the anti-abortion campaign. On the one hand it is looking for a "compromise" with the Church that will be profitable to both sides. On the other, it is giving the go-ahead to certain of its structures - a section of the press, the official student organization and so on - to take up the defence of women who face imprisonment as a consequence of having an abortion. In this way the bureaucracy hopes to regain a social base.
The vast majority of Polish women are Catholics, and therefore so are most women who have abortions. A sizeable number of them are refusing to passively follow the anti-abortion campaign and are defending the 1956 law. "I am a Catholic, but in this area, I do not agree with the Church....It is my responsibility, a matter for my conscience and not for the Church! You should consider this letter not as a lone voice, but as the voice of many women who are saying: we want the sole right to decide how many children we have, and we want to be able to legally terminate our pregnancies!" These Catholic women are also in revolt against the fact that the ecclesiastical apparatus — whose functionaries are not only all male, but also know nothing about sexual life, and who have no family responsibilities — are proposing to decide the fate of women."
The term "feminist" is "almost insulting" in today's Poland. The feminist movement had not existed before this. An initiative taken during the revolution of 1980-81 by women students at Warsaw university failed to get an echo. Today however, the attack on women's right to choose has immediately catalyzed such a movement. This is an important political lesson. Feminist groups that nobody had previously heard of have been speaking out in the press. One of them, from Upper Silesia, wrote in March to the editors of Kobieta i Zycie that there was a real danger that "Poland will gradually become a second Ireland", despite the fact that "this is happening in a socialist country, in the heart of Europe, at the end of the twentieth century....The Vatican and the Church are losing their big influence in Spain and Italy (where the right to abortion was won in a referendum), and are trying to regain it in our country". 18
In May the first feminist groups set the precedent by coming out into the streets and struggling openly for women's abortion rights and for the free expression of feminist ideas. The most combative feminist action was that undertaken by a group of women students in the central market in Cracow, a city with very conservative traditions, where Hennelowa is standing and where the principal leader of the Independent Students' Association (NZS) has been involved in the anti-abortion campaign. But in spite of all this, the feminists have not been isolated. They got immediate support from the socialists of the PPS-RD, but also, for example, from young radical militants of the Confederation for an Independent Poland (KPN), although such an attitude has nothing in common with the ideology and policies of the leadership of that party.
The first street demonstration took place on May 6 in Warsaw, with about a thousand participants, some of whom had come from towns far away from the capital.
POLAND
Some were already able to report on the progress of petition campaigns in the workplaces. The demonstration was organized on the initiative of independent groups. The banners proclaimed: "Freedom of conscience means three years in prison", do not want new prisoners of conscience",
"No to the inquisition", are everywhere, there will be no more
D&Cs", and "Will abandoned babies be adopted by the monks?" They put to the fore women's right to control their bodies and their wombs, and the principle that it is the woman who must decide. These are the those put forward by the women's movement in the capitalist countries, brought together in the appeal of the International
Campaign for Abortion Rights in 1979.19
There were also radical anti-clerical slogans warning against the danger of a joint dictatorship of the
"black"
"red"
and bureaucracies. The extremely official
Women's League, as well as the leadership of Solidarnosc, were put on the spot for their passivity. Chris-
Bobinski topher quotes a group of women from Byd-
"We were in Solidarnosc and active in the underground too,"
said Joanna Buszkowska from the group,
"but on this they are too much in the hands of the Church". They boasted that in two hours they had collected 200 signatures from women in the local Telfa electronics
The demonstrators marched through the streets of Warsaw in front of the palace of
Primate Glemp and went to the Ministry of
Health, but the minister did not receive them. In a few days tens of thousands of signatures were collected in the university, the streets and factories, on petitions addressed to the Sejm and to the official civil rights' ombudsman. A second demonstration organized by students was held on
May 10 in front of the Sejm. Men, often carrying children, were there alongside the women. Women workers were also present.
They told a journalist: "Write that women have taken time off from work, if only briefly, to make it clear that we want to pro-
16. Carrying on the tradition of the right wing pre-war bourgeois nationalist movement, which favored an alliance with Russia.
17. Kobieta i Zycie, January 25, 1989.
18. Kobieta i Zycie, April 5, 1989.
20. Financial preside 1, 17, a Broche, Paris 1979. 11
20. Financial Times, May 11, 1989.