It was intense being a small supporter of the Polish Feminist's protest against the changes in the reproductive law in Poland. We were women, together, in solidarity, almost all dressed solely in black. We met in Parliament Square, and later at the Polish embassy, with speeches and cries of mourning. Mourning.
'It was not a death,' cried the speaker, 'but a murder. Reproductive rights in Poland have been murdered!'
And we watched a young woman contorting her body, crying, wailing, pulling out coat hangers and rubbing her own wrists with black liquid. This wasn't a death, it was a murder.
Why do I care, challenged the speaker, why do any of us care? Because women who can afford to leave the country for an abortion will, those that can not will look for other methods, which may result in death.
Why care? How can we not?
It is hard to understand or make sense of the fact that this is happening somewhere.
I grew up with the horror stories of women's lives before abortion was made legal, and it is hard to imagine living in a world where that is no longer the case.
It put women's rights and gender right into the centre of my mind again. The work that is unfinished, the cruel realities which lurk underneath the clean exterior of our everyday lives.
'It was not a death,' cried the speaker, 'but a murder. Reproductive rights in Poland have been murdered!'
And we watched a young woman contorting her body, crying, wailing, pulling out coat hangers and rubbing her own wrists with black liquid. This wasn't a death, it was a murder.
Why do I care, challenged the speaker, why do any of us care? Because women who can afford to leave the country for an abortion will, those that can not will look for other methods, which may result in death.
Why care? How can we not?
It is hard to understand or make sense of the fact that this is happening somewhere.
I grew up with the horror stories of women's lives before abortion was made legal, and it is hard to imagine living in a world where that is no longer the case.
It put women's rights and gender right into the centre of my mind again. The work that is unfinished, the cruel realities which lurk underneath the clean exterior of our everyday lives.
