‘My trust is limited’: feminist takes aim at Polish opposition

A feminist activist and electoral candidate who was dropped by Donald Tusk’s opposition alliance in Poland after she expressed support for abortion access after 12 weeks of pregnancy has said her trust in the veteran liberal conservative to fight for women’s rights is “limited”.

Jana Shostak, a 30-year-old performance artist, has a strong record of advocacy on behalf of Belarusian democracy, refugees and women’s rights. When she announced she was running for parliament in next month’s election – joining the coalition of the leading opposition party, Civic Platform (PO) – Poland’s progressives were excited.

Shostak, who has joint Polish and Belarusian citizenship, seemed to offer an antidote to the tired and cautiously moderate image of the centre-right PO, which has been trying to wrangle power from the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) for the last eight years. She planned to run for election as a member of the Green party, a junior centre-left partner in the opposition coalition.

But, little over a month after her announcement, she was dropped by the coalition, after a video interview in which she appeared to express support for abortion access in second and third trimester. Without making any specific policy recommendations, when asked if women should have the choice to end their pregnancy at any point, she said: “Yes.”

The position is controversial: Poland has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, allowing for termination only in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the woman’s health or life. In 2020, the restrictions were tightened further, when Poland’s constitutional tribunal ruled that abortions on the grounds of foetal defects were unconstitutional, ending the most common legal route for terminating a pregnancy.

But Shostak said she was still surprised by the decision to remove her from the coalition.

“I did not expect that talking about abortion would get me dropped,” Shostak told the Guardian, citing Tusk’s comments at the most recent annual Women’s Congress, where he spoke emphatically in support of legal abortion and promised that no candidate who opposed liberalisation of the existing abortion law would be able to run as part of PO’s coalition.

“Neither Mr Tusk nor anyone from PO ever contacted me, or even bothered to ask me what my views actually are,” Shostak said. “Let’s not make out women to be crazy. It’s not like anyone wakes up at eight months [pregnant] and decides to have an abortion for no reason.”

Donald Tusk on the campaign trail this month. Photograph: Damian Burzykowski/Newspix/Zuma Press/Shutterstock

Every week, she added, international organisations helped women to go abroad to get abortions in the later stages of pregnancy. “There are many reasons for this,” she said. “Twelve weeks is an arbitrary, symbolic number.”

Full decriminalisation of abortion has become a standard demand among reproductive rights advocates around the world, who say that abortion should be treated like other medical procedures. Canada removed legal time limits on abortion in 1988, though availability varies between provinces. Demands to fully decriminalise abortion have also been made by the British Medical Association.

In the run-up to next month’s election, Tusk, the former Polish prime minister and former president of the European Council, sought the support of Poland’s feminists. He made a commitment to gender parity among his coalition’s parliamentary candidates and promised that, if elected as prime minister, he would legalise abortion on request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.

But in recent months Tusk has been making conciliatory gestures to conservative voters, which Shostak and others have described as “populist and xenophobic”.

In an apparent attempt not to appear soft on migration as PiS and others whip up controversy after controversy, Tusk has also tacked to the right on immigration, calling on Poles to “regain control of their country and its borders” and warning that “danger is lurking” in the form of 130,000 migrants from “countries such as Saudi Arabia … and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan”.

And, despite his promise on abortion, candidates with a history of opposing reproductive rights have found a place in PO’s electoral coalition, including Roman Giertych, the former leader of the far-right nationalist organisation, All-Poland Youth. As education minister in the 2006 PiS government, he once said: “Every child should learn that abortion is murder.”

In a recent statement to clarify his position, Giertych condemned the 2020 constitutional tribunal ruling that made abortion illegal on ground of foetal abnormalities and promised to be a “loyal” member of the opposition coalition. But he also said he had not changed his views: “I believe abortion is evil, but sometimes permissible.”

“I am a visual artist,” said Shostak. “I’d like to see a draft bill, with my own two eyes, which would legalise abortion up to 12 weeks and I’d like to see … Giertych signing it.”

Even if Tusk did represent the best chance of ousting PiS from power, Shostak said, his campaign had left her with serious doubts. “My trust is limited. Together we fight against PiS, which is mad with nationalism and corruption. But my line of disagreement with Tusk is where he starts using populist and xenophobic arguments, such as in the case of abortion and migration.”

Shostak is now running as an independent member of the leftwing electoral coalition. “Politics are a quagmire,” she said. “But I want to bring the voice of activists directly to parliament and change what we understand politics to be.”

At the so-called “March of a million hearts” on Sunday, Tusk’s big pre-election rally in Warsaw, many speakers from the stage talked about the importance of women’s rights.

“It’s women who will win these elections,” said left-wing leader Robert Biedroń. “Women, girls, your rights must become our strength,” he added.

However, for all the talk of women’s rights from the stage, it was noticeable that of the seven speakers only one was a woman: the youngest candidate for Civil Coalition, Wiktoria Bartosiewicz, from the city of Katowice. Tusk mistakenly introduced her as “Weronika”.

A representative for Tusk declined to comment.