Catholic Church in Poland is pushing to assert its ideological and moral domination over society and the state. The big chiefs of the Church make no bones about what they want: "We find ourselves at a particular point in history
- that of the return of
Christian values to their proper place, both in the field of the functioning of society and in all our public activity"
The clergy's onslaught enjoys the support of many parliamentarians on the government side, who were elected with Church support.
JAN MALEWSKI
F
OLLOWING up attempts to get its men into the key posts in the media, the Church is now attempting to assert its right to vet information. On October 15, there was a vote in the Polish parliament (the Diet)
over whether the law on audio-visual communications should require editors to
"respect Christian values in their system of broadcasts".
Bishops in a frenzy
The vote against drove the bishops to a frenzy. "What do these parliamentary deputies represent, who, in a country where the majority is Christian, reject a proposal that the mass media should reject
Christian values" thundered a statement from the Conference of Bishops. The bishops spelled out what they meant by values: "we have seen attacks on the Holy Father [the Pope] in the Polish press". 2
During the vote on the law in the Upper House, the Catholic censors returned to the attack: "As a Catholic I cannot accept a law that does not uphold respect for Christian values. It is not a matter of indifference to know what system of values is being imposed on society: minorities must respect the views of the majority", as one explained.3 And the Senate agreed with him. If the law goes through a second reading in the Diet, then the censorship will be back, this time in Catholic rather than
As the Catholic church still does not recognize divorce, another draft law is aimed at introducing the institution of
This would mean that the ex-spouses would be forbidden to remarry and the separation could be overturned on a simple application by a former spouse to a court.
Persecuting single parents
The deputies supporting this scheme made clear their aim of "limiting the number of divorces" and "giving couples a chance to reflect on their decision". The draft law has gone to a parliamentary commission.4 The Polish parliament has also covered itself in glory by depriving one parent families of the tax reductions granted to married couples. This will afflict above all single mothers.
The crucial obsession of the clerics however is the issue of abortion. In 1990 the church won its first victory over women: the scope of the abortion law was restricted by a ministerial decree which required that women seeking an abortion must go before two commissions and freed hospitals from their obligation to perform the operation. In December 1991, the doctors' congress adopted a Code of Ethics which forbids doctors from carrying out abortions.
At the same time, a law was passed giving the Chamber of Doctors the power to ban its members from practising. In July 1992, parliament rejected the demand for a referendum on this question.
Finally, on November 19, the parliamentary commission entrusted with examining the draft law on the "protection of the unborn child" definitively adopted the most restrictive version in front of it. The text allows for a two year prison term for anyone responsible for an abortion (the doctor or the women if she self-aborts) and includes under the heading of abortion any contraceptive method which takes effect after conception (RU-486, the coil, and some up-to-date pills). The law could also mean a ban on all prenatal examinations.
This law could be put to the vote in the Diet at any moment, the decision on timing being in the hands of the Diet's president who is a leader of the National Christian Union (ZChN), and could well be passed.
In the name of a minority of the commission, Barbara Labuda of the Democratic Union intends to present a second time the demand for a referendum while Izabella Sierakowska of the Social Democracy (which originated in the former ruling Polish United Workers Party) will put forward an amended text, allowing abortion in certain cases - when the mother's life is in danger, when the child is likely to be born ill, when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or other crimes and when the mother finds herself in a particularly 1. Call to prayer in favour of the "legal protection of the conceived human life" from primate Josef Glemp and the secretary of the Polish Episcopate, Archbishop Bronislaw Dabrowski, as broadcast by Radio Warsaw, November 15, 1992 and quoted in Gazeta Wyborcza, November 16, 1992. 2. Gazeta Wyborcza, October 17-18, 1992. 3. Ibid., November 14-15, 1992. 4. Ibid., November 9, 1992. 5. Ibid., October 30, 1992. 6. Thus, the prime minister, Hanna Suchocka, the leader of the liberal Democratic Union is one of the authors of the anti-abortion law, while other DU
POLAND difficult social situation or presents especially serious personal circumstances in
After a long period in which they were paralyzed by their governmental alliance with the Catholic fundamentalists and their own differences over the issue, the liberal parliamentarians now support the initiative of the Union of Labour? in favour of a referendum, alongside the
The Committee for a Referendum was formed on November 7 with the support of all the Polish women's organizations.8 It aims to build up a vast movement throughout the country. While the present law states that only the Diet can decide (by a simply majority) to organize a referendum, the new draft Charter of Rights and Liberties submitted to parliament by President Lech Walesa allows for a referendum on the initiative of the president or of 500,000 signatories to a petition.
### Majority opposed to abortion ban
Despite the big campaign claiming that abortion is more-or-less murder, the majority of the Polish people remain opposed to the criminalization of abortion.
A poll by CBOS? on November 15 found that 81% (against 11%) of Poles were in favour of permitting abortion in cases where the life or health of the woman were endangered; 80% (against 9%) in cases where the embryo was affected by incurable illness or deformity; 74% (against 15%) when the pregnancy had resulted from a crime (rape or incest); and 53% (against 32%) when the pregnant woman was in a difficult social, material or family situation. Only in the case of unlimited access to abortion was there a majority against — 59% to 29%.
Prime Minister Suchocka is against a referendum: "This is an attempt to divide society. It may destabilize what we have built up with so much effort". 10 She has, however, asked that the Diet should not vote on this issue before the final adoption of the state budget. Eager not to be left behind, President Walesa has not only expressed his opposition to a referendum but has said he will not sign a law permitting abortion.!* deputies such as Barbara Labuda, are involved in the struggle to defend abortion rights. 7. The Union of Labour bases itself on the tradition of the left in Solidarnosc. It has three deputies. 8. These being the League of Women, the Polish Feminist Association, Pro Femina, Neutrum and the Women's Family Planning Federation as well as some regional women's commissions of Solidar9. Gazeta Wyborcza, November 17, 1992. 5 10. Ibid., November 16, 1992. 11. Ibid., November 19, 1992.
A decade of "Felipismo"
THIS October saw the tenth anniversary of the coming to power in
Spain of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) headed by
Felipe Gonzalez. Announcing his candidature in the forthcoming elections to the party faithful, Gonzalez claimed that he needed
International Viewpoint # 240 • December 7, 1992
SPANISH STATE ty, given the community of interests between the government and the right, now with a Socialist government in power, they believed things would be very dif-
Underpinning this belief was the relation between the union and the "fraterten to 15 years more in power "to modernize Spain". He has also recently indicated his willingness to form a coalition government if the PSOE loses its majority.
The political basis for this would be his determination to persist in the process of European construction associated with the controversial Maastricht Treaty. As he has explained "if Europe breaks up, this will not only mark the end of the Socialist project, but that of part of the perspectives of the whole of Spain".
Over the past decade, Gonzalez's modernization programme has combined an appeal to the progressive longings of a population newly freed from the Franco dictatorship and a firm commitment to free market principles and a centralized state. Strains in the balancing act this required began to become apparent in the mid-1980s, but rapid economic growth has given the PSOE regime a measure of stability.
The end of the Spanish economic "miracle" - signalled by the current discussions over devaluing the peseta - will undermine the credibility of Gonzalez's claims about the overall benefits of modernization.