Protests in Poland as proposed laws curtail women’s rights

Religiously conservative Law & Justice party embarks on nuclear family agenda, described as ‘payback time for the church’ after years of liberalism Campaigners are planning to step up resistance to Poland’s ultra-conservative government after it cleared a constitutional path for hardline law changes, expected to include a total ban on abortion and curbs to gender …

Feminists are failing Muslim women by supporting racist French laws

By Christine Delphy Is mainstream French feminism racist? I co-founded Nouvelles Questions Feministes (New Feminist Issues) with Simone de Beauvoir in 1977 and have long been involved with Mouvement de Libération des Femmes (MLF) but increasingly, it’s clear to me that French attitudes towards the hijab and Muslim women are not just incomprehensible, but reprehensible. The …

Portugal tightens abortion laws, forcing women to pay to end pregnancies

Women will also be required to have counselling before a termination, in a move pro-choice campaigners said was designed to ‘humiliate’ women. Portugal has tightened its abortion laws, adopting a bill aimed at making women pay to end a pregnancy and requirements for more stringent tests before the procedure. On Wednesday, the governing centre-right coalition …

She is not a criminal. Tell Ireland to change its abortion law

She’s pregnant. Doctors say the foetus won’t survive. But Irish law says she has to carry the pregnancy to term. She was raped. Now she’s pregnant. And each day that the pregnancy continues reminds her of the horror she went through. Still, Irish law says she has to carry on. She needs an abortion, but …