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Poland is a very Catholic country and the Roman Catholic Church is very much against abortion. The government is also very anti-labor union.
The Committee for a Workers' International (socialistworld.net) reports
[Poland already] has one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in Europe, allowing abortion only in the case of rape, a threat to the health or life of the woman, or deformation of the foetus. In practice, even when these conditions are fulfilled abortion is often prevented by doctors who exploit the so-called "conscience clause" and impose their own religious beliefs on patients by refusing vital treatment.
This law was forced through at the beginning of the 1990s [...] (over 70% of the population was against an abortion ban and supported [...] abortion on demand).
[...] [Recent] plans to impose a total ban on abortion have sparked a massive uncontrolled explosion of anger in Poland. On Monday 3 October a strike of Polish women was called, inspired by the example of Icelandic women, who held a nationwide strike in 1975. [...] Even the police's conservative estimates talk about 98,000 people demonstrating in over 143 separate protests across the country. These are easily the biggest ever protests in defence of abortion rights in Poland, far exceeding the protests in 1993, when the current ban on abortion was introduced.
[This week's strike]
[Continues...]
[...] [In response to the proposed ban, and] inspired by the 1976 strike of women in Iceland, the idea was raised of organising a strike of women. This was not called by any of the trade unions, instead the idea came from within the movement by women who had no previous trade union or strike experience. However, due to the anti-trade union laws and the difficulty of organising a legal strike even by a trade union, women were not encouraged to actually strike, but rather to take a day off work on what was nicknamed Czarny poniedzialek (Back Monday).
Unfortunately many women were prevented from taking part in this strike because they [have lousy employment] contracts and have no right to a day off on demand. For example, Lidl supermarket chain threatened to sack staff who took a day off on Monday.
Finally, on the day of the strike, OPZZ, one of the three major trade union federations, expressed its support and pledged to defend its members from victimisation, should they decide to participate in the protest. Thanks to this, many public administration workers, particularly in local government, were able to strike. A number of theatres and small businesses announced they would close that day to allow their staff to participate. Many more women who had no option but to work dressed in black to express their support for the strike.
[...] Around 10,000 gathered outside parliament in the rain. There were no speakers, but the mood was loud and angry. There were rumours that several thousand protesters marched to Teatr Polski, the theatre where Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling party Law and Justice, was having a meeting.
[...] Law and Justice has been taken completely off guard by the movement. It did not plan to introduce a change in the abortion law, at least not this year, but was forced into taking a position by more right-wing elements and the church, who organised their own "citizen's [initiative]".
Due to the scale of the movement, Law and Justice has reacted by announcing that it will prepare its own compromise draft law, which will probably allow abortion in the case of rape and a threat to the life of the woman, but not in the case of a deformity of the foetus. This, of course, is not a compromise at all, but represents a further tightening of the ban and is completely unacceptable. However, it shows that the government is beginning to feel the pressure.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @07:18AM
The national socialist government (sorry but both labels are true)
Socialism is all about The Workers.
A place that is anti-union is not anything like Socialist.
You have allowed yourself to become a victim of propaganda and, as a result, have a very muddled understanding of the world.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Friday October 07 2016, @07:33PM
NSDAP banned all unions despite having itself originated as one; PiS likewise dislikes all unions not affiliated with it.
And this is not even endemic to national socialism: red socialists (ie, communists) did the same to unions they didn't control.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @11:21PM
You're *still* repeating the Cold War propaganda.
If you -mean- "Stalinists", you should -say- "Stalinists".
Neither Socialism nor Communism is a top-down thing--despite the efforts of both sides who spewed the Cold War nonsense trying to convince weak-minded people that Totalitarianism is synonymous with those by improperly using the terms.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday October 08 2016, @09:11AM
There's something of a fascist coup going on in the UK just now. The Conservative Party is turning National Socialist [theguardian.com]. They've already all but broken the unions, decimated the Welfare State and now they're coming for the foreigners. National Socialist is such an oxymoron, isn't it...
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:53AM
National Socialist is such an oxymoron
You got this all wrong as well.
If you have a place where the means of production is owned by the gov't but the workplaces are NOT Worker Cooperatives, what you have IS NOT SOCIALISM.
At best, you have Liberal Democracy as a governmental form and you definitely have State Capitalism as the economic model.
Additionally, Germany during Hitler's regime was Capitalist in the extreme.
It's an essential element of Fascism.
Equating a place to someplace Fascist and calling it "socialist" is just plain stupid; the 2 couldn't be more opposite.
.
...and posts in this thread by KiloByte have been a mess from start to finish.
The usual words that are criticized in the name of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party) are Socialist and Workers.
The Nazis weren't about The Workers (they were anti-union and anti-Communist) and they sure as hell weren't about Socialism (AKA Democracy in the Workplace).
...and "National" is NEVER disputed--I certainly didn't.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday October 09 2016, @06:14PM
Precisely.
And it's 80 years since the Battle of Cable Street [wikipedia.org].
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].