AP: Poland protests leader: Abortion court ruling must be waived

Poland's prime minister appealed Monday for talks with the leaders of massive protests that were triggered by the tightening last month of the nation's strict abortion law and are continuing despite a resurgence of COVID-19.

Just hours before the latest round of nationwide marches began Monday, the head of the right-wing government, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, made a video appeal to protesters and opposition leaders.

"I ask you to sit down together for talks. May our disputes not be held in the streets and may they not be the cause of more infections," Morawiecki said.

Later Monday, Morawiecki met with parliament leaders, but the main opposition party Civic Coalition and leftists were absent.

Morawiecki's appeal didn't stop protesters with signs calling for abortion rights from blocking streets and traffic circles in Warsaw, Poland's capital, and other cities like Krakow, Wroclaw, Gdansk and Bialystok for the 12th straight day.

New York Post: Polish abortion protest leader seeks inspiration from Belarus

As Poland's abortion protests continue into a second week, their top organizer, Marta Lempart, says she is grateful for a clear role model to the East - Belarus's opposition movement.

Tens of thousands have gathered across Poland, with the largest protests on Friday in Warsaw, since the Constitutional Tribunal further limited the country's already restrictive abortion laws, making terminations due to fetal abnormalities illegal.

Hundreds marched through the streets and rallied outside universities to keep pressure on Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko to resign.

Lempart, a 41-year-old lawyer by training and one of the heads of Strajk Kobiet (Women's Strike), thinks the parallels between the Polish and Belarusian movements are clear: they are being run by Eastern Europeans and by women.

Poland delays abortion ban as nationwide protests continue

Poland's rightwing government has delayed implementation of a controversial court ruling that would outlaw almost all abortion in the country, after it prompted the largest protests since the fall of communism.

"There is a discussion going on, and it would be good to take some time for dialogue and for finding a new position in this situation, which is difficult and stirs high emotions," Michał Dworczyk, the head of the prime minister's office, told Polish media on Tuesday.

The decision by the country's constitutional tribunal promised to further tighten Poland's abortion laws, which were already some of the strictest in Europe. The tribunal ruled that terminations should be illegal even in cases where a foetus is diagnosed with a serious and irreversible birth defect. This kind of abortion accounts for almost all of the small number of abortions performed legally in the country.

The decision has still not been published, despite a Monday deadline, and as such has not entered into force. "It's clearly a political decision," said Anna Wójcik, a researcher at the law studies institute at the Polish Academy of Sciences. "Judgements are meant to be published with no delay. It's a legal trick to withhold publishing."

What to the Poles think of the bishop of Macerata? In a speech praising the Polish decision, he claimed that abortion is worse that pedophilia (because priests can only commit the latter?)