Women in Europe are uniting to fight anti-abortion laws
LONDON -- On Saturday afternoon, a group of women gathered outside London's West End Central Police Station to hand themselves in. Their crime, having an abortion.
With placards bearing the words "arrest me," protesters were told by police they "had not committed a crime."
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The response shows the stark contrast between abortion law in England and that in another part of the United Kingdom -- Northern Ireland -- where a 21-year-old woman was recently convicted because of an abortion she had as a teen.
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The protestors were also there to show solidarity with a second Northern Irish woman who is awaiting trial for helping her daughter obtain abortion pills.
But they didn't stop there.
The group hotfooted across London to the Polish embassy to join forces with campaigners protesting the proposal of a total ban on abortion in Poland, where abortion laws are already heavily circumscribed.
Abortion in Poland is currently only allowed in cases of rape, incest, fatal foetal malformation, or when the woman's life is in danger. But a citizens' petition calling for the total abolition of Polish women's access to abortions has been endorsed by prime minister Beata Szydło, former prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński, and the Polish Roman Catholic bishops' conference.
Alisa Berry-Ryan -- campaign coordinator at Abortion Rights -- who organised the "arrest me" protest told Mashable she wanted to stand in solidarity with women in both countries.
"We wanted the women of Northern Ireland and Poland to know that we're watching," said Berry-Ryan.
"If this is a war on women, it's a war on poor, young women."
"What's going on in Northern Ireland and Poland is outrageous to us. We need to be aware that it's not 'them over there'. It's happening in part of the UK and in parts of Europe."
Berry-Ryan says banning abortion is about policing women's choices.
"In reality, abortion is very normal. I've had one. Many of the women I love have had one."
"Just one hour away, if I'd admitted I'd had an abortion, the consequences would be dramatically different."
More than 300 people showed up to shout "my body, my choice" outside the Polish embassy, while others placed coat hangers -- the campaign's symbol of choice -- on the building's front door and railings.
"We offer our support and solidarity to the brave Polish women who are fighting to defend their rights," said Kelley Temple, from Abortion Rights, in an address at the protest, mentioning the demonstration happening in Warsaw at the same time.
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Protesters from Abortion Rights weren't the only group to stand behind Polish women, however. Groups from the Republic of Ireland including Galway Pro Choice, ROSA and Abortion Rights Ireland also protested the proposed ban in Poland.
Low-income women hit worst
"Hearing about the devastating abortion ban being proposed in Poland: 'It will be poor women who suffer the most' *as ever*," read one tweet from outside the Polish embassy.
This is certainly the case in Northern Ireland, where low-income women have no other choice than to self-abort using pills bought online because they can't afford to travel to England to get a safe and legal termination through a private clinic.
“Every year, between 80,000 and 100,000 Polish women endure backstreet abortions in Poland or travel abroad for the procedure – generally to Slovakia, Germany or Ukraine,’’ Barbara Nowacka, leader of Poland's United Left political alliance told the Guardian.
“Germany, which has twice Poland’s population, registers about the same number of legal abortions per year. Those figures show you that a ban does not work,’’ she continued.
For Berry-Ryan, the fight against abortion bans is a question of human rights.
"The women who are affected by a ban on abortion are living in the UK and in Europe. They are not very far away from us."
"But, the implications are massively different purely because of where we're born," she continued.
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Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
