EMS 2023, Warsaw

bad news for reproductive rights

Last week, when reading about Japan [late in] coming close validating drug induced abortion, I found out that both surgical and medical abortions in Japan do require [by law] the consent of the woman’s partner! As denounced by both the World Health Organisation and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, this is an appalling restriction, a violation of reproductive rights, and  a potential tool for partner abuse.

And then came the news of Poland setting a database of pregnancies, reported by medical personnel. Which is of course worrying in a country where abortion is essentially illegal. As the über conservative Polish authorities could use the database to hunt and prosecute women who have self-administered abortions….

Meanwhile, Oklahoma governor just signed a law making abortion illegal at conception, following another law turning abortion practice into a felony… Not even waiting for the SCOTUS [likely] abrogation of Roe v. Wade.

Dear Prosecutor General [AI call]

Public Prosecutor General, Mr. Zbigniew Tadeusz Ziobro
ul. Postępu 3
02–676 Warszawa
Poland
Email: biuro.podawcze@pk.gov.pl

Dear Public Prosecutor General,

I am writing to express my deep concern about charges brought against human rights defender Justyna Wydrzyńska that stem solely from her activism to support access to safe abortion. Justyna has been charged with ‘helping in the performance of an abortion’ on the basis of Article 152.2 of the Polish Penal Code, and ‘possession of unauthorised drugs with the aim of introducing them to the market’ under Article 124 of the Pharmaceutical Law. If convicted, she faces up to three years in prison. I am deeply concerned that charges against Justyna appear to be brought in reprisal for her activism and her legitimate efforts to defend access to safe and legal abortions in Poland. Justyna is a doula and an activist who has been outspoken about her own abortion. She is one of the founders of Abortion Dream Team, an activist collective in Poland that campaigns against abortion stigma and provides evidence–based and non–biased abortion–related information, including on World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance on safe self–managed medical abortion.

I would like to stress that laws that restrict access to abortions in Poland –only allowed when the health or the life of the pregnant woman is at risk or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest – and criminalise those who provide or help with an abortion put pregnant people’s health and lives at risk and violate Poland’s obligations under international human rights law and standards. It is precisely because of these harmful laws, that Justyna’s support to people whose health needs have been neglected and denied by the Polish health care system are crucial and can save lives. Her work should be applauded, not criminalised. Justyna’s efforts are part of a growing movement of individuals in Poland and around the world who show solidarity and compassion, while helping others to access the sexual and reproductive health and rights they are entitled to. Poland must take urgent action to ensure that abortion is fully decriminalised and that people defending sexual and reproductive rights, including access to safe abortion, are able to carry out their legitimate work without fear of reprisals or intimidation.

I therefore urge you to immediately drop all charges against human rights defender Justyna Wydrzyńska and refrain from bringing any other charges with the intention to criminalise her or other activists for providing lifesaving support to people seeking an abortion.

Yours sincerely,

systemic realities?!

While the US Supreme Court has all but abolished Roe v. Wade, by allowing Texas to keep banning abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, The New York Times continues to publish opinion pieces from anti-abortion editors. Like this one this weekend from an Anglican priest who can make preachifying statements like Roe v. Wade creating “realities where abortion becomes the easier choice for women who have unintended pregnancies” or where “pressure from the medical community to abort is common”… Or yet stating that “many European countries have far more restrictive abortion laws and lower abortion rates than the United States without curtailing the advancement of women.” As analysed in another NYT article,  this is also an argument made by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., ill-boding for the future of the law. This is when solely considering the cutoff of Roe v. Wade, rather than the access to abortion which proves much more inaccessible in most US States than Western Europe countries (with the exceptions of Northern Ireland, the Faroe Islands, and Malta, plus Poland), from local regulations to financial hurdles, to inexistent offer. (And I wonder at the repeated use of realities in the tribune. There is one reality and it is pretty harsh on women seeking abortion. Unless one prefers alternative facts…)

a journal of the plague year [are we there yet?!]

Read the next volume of the Witcher series, Baptism of Fire, with even less enthusiasm than for the previous one, as the momentum of the series seems to have stalled… (Despite reading some highly positive reviews.) Some dialogues are funny enough, along with progressive views not particularly common in fantasy, like the support of reproductive rights, incl. abortion (and even less supported in the home country of the author, Andrzej Sapkowski!). But overall, not much happening and too much infodump!

Baked Ethiopian lentils & spinach mix, to get along with a slow cooking Ethiopian beef stew. And cooked more Venetian dishes. And had a great Korean streetfood dinner at (or from) MamiBaba by Quinsou, near Montparnasse, with pajeon (the cousin to okonomiyaki!) and kimchee. Accompanied by a first attempt at baking a chocolate pie.

Watched a few episodes of Alice in Borderland, vaguely suggested as hearsay by my daughter, but despite the fascinating scenes of an empty Tokyo, the plot is not particularly engaging, the tricks towards solving the game often lame, and the characters are not developed at all. Then watched Kurosawa’s Creepy, a gripping if not particularly realist psychological thriller that was premiered at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival. And reminded me of the much more disturbing Losey’s The Servant…

Read two further volumes of John Harvey’s Charlie Resnick, in a random order, volumes that I found in and returned to the exchange section in front of our library as usual. And which I found almost as good as the first one, with its insistence on the humanity of each of the characters rather than indulging in manicheism. References to jazz pieces got a wee bit annoying by the third volume… And there is a maximal number of rye bread sandwiches with Polish pastrami I can swallow!

Watched also for the first time the fascinating The Wild Goose Lake (南方车站的聚会 which translates as A Rendez-Vous at a Station in the South), by Diao Yinan, a 2019 Cannes Festival selection, a psychological and violent noir film taking place in Wuhan among local gangs, when a gang boss kills by mistake a policeman after a very gory episode. The classical story line of the chase à la A bout de souffle is both tenuous and gripping, with an painful attention to colour and lightings, most scenes taking place at night with ghastly lights, with an intentional confusion between gangs of criminals and groups of cops, the final scene in full daylight making everything else sounding like a bad dream. The two main characters are striking, with an outlandish swan-like actress Gwei Lun-Mei. This also led me to watch the earlier Black Coal Thin Ice, which I also found impressive in terms of filming [that makes the cold and snow in this Northern city almost perceptible!] and definition of characters, once again involving Gwei Lun-Mei as the central, almost mute, and doomed, woman, but puzzling in terms of psychology and scenarios. (The shootout in the gallery is plain ridiculous imho.)