2020–2021 women's strike protests in Poland
The 2020–2021 women's strike protests in Poland, commonly called the Women's Strike (), were anti-government demonstrations and protests in Poland that began on 22 October 2020, in reaction to a ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal, mainly consisting of judges who were appointed by the ruling Law and Justice (, PiS) dominated United Right, which tightened the law on abortion in Poland. The ruling made almost all cases of abortion illegal, including those cases in which the foetus had a severe and permanent disability, or an incurable and life-threatening disease. All-Poland Women's Strike was charged by the authorities for having illegally organised the protests. On the evening of 22 October 2020, a wave of mass protests in opposition to the ruling commenced. In the biggest protest in the country since the end of the People's Republic during the revolutions of 1989, protesters opposed the interference of the Roman Catholic Church in public matters, and opposed the domination of all three branches of government by the ruling coalition. Constitutional Tribunal abortion case Background On 7 January 1993, the Polish parliament passed the Law on Family Planning forbidding abortion, except if (1) the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother's life, (2) it is the result of a crime, or (3) there is a foetal impairment. In 1997, the Constitutional Tribunal headed by Andrzej Zoll ruled abortion on social grounds unconstitutional. During the mid-2010s, about 80,000–200,000 Polish women carried out abortions (whether legal or illegal) per year according to the , or 8,000–13,000 according to the Polish Association of Defenders of Human Life. In the 2010s, about a quarter of all Polish women had terminated a pregnancy, according to Public Opinion Research Center in 2013, and Federation for Women and Family Planning in 2016. Abortion rates around the world ranged from about 10 to 40 per year per 1000 women aged 15–44 in the 2000s, "in all regions of the world, regardless of the status of abortion laws", according to Sedgh, Singh, Henshaw and Bankole in The Lancet. The number of legal abortions in Poland was about 1,000 legal abortions per year in the 2010s. Because the Lower House elects constitutional judges, since the United Right took power in Poland in 2015, PiS' domination has expanded onto the judicial branch. This domination led to the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The status of the tribunal continues to be disputed in February 2020 by some of its former judges and presidents. In 2016, a citizen initiative was launched by anti-abortion movements such as Stop Aborcji [Stop Abortion] to tighten restrictions on abortions. It collected 830,000 signatures, forcing the Polish Parliament to discuss it. As the bill advanced further in parliamentary discussions, the All-Poland Women's Strike launched a protest movement branded "Black Protest" that attracted international coverage. After a few days, the PiS government let the bill die in committee. The anti-abortion groups then started to oppose the constitutionality of the existing abortion law. Following the 2019 election, 119 members of the newly elected Sejm,