“A woman should follow her own conscience”: understanding Catholic involvement in demonstrations against the abortion ban in Poland

Autor

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12775/lud105.2021.01

Słowa kluczowe

abortion; Poland; protest; Catholicism

Abstrakt

In October 2020, a ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal effectively ending legal abortion incited mass protests across the country. Despite the demonstrations being directed at both the government and the Catholic Church, many devout Catholics joined the protests against the Church’s opposition to family planning being enacted through state-imposed prohibition.

Drawing on ongoing archival and ethnographic research, in this paper we address a number of issues relating to Catholicism and abortion: how it is possible that so many Catholics decided to take part in pro-choice marches openly opposing official Catholic teaching on birth control? What were their motivations?

Biogramy autorów

Agnieszka Kościańska - Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw

Agnieszka Kościańska is Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and Associate Professor at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw.  She is the author and (co)editor of several volumes on gender and sexuality, including To See a Moose: The History of Polish Sex Education (Berghahn Books 2021, Polish edition 2017, Wydawnictwo Czarne), Gender, Pleasure, and Violence: The Construction of Expert Knowledge of Sexuality in Poland (Indiana University Press 2021, Polish edition 2014, University of Warsaw Press). She is the Principal Investigator in Catholicising Reproduction, Reproducing Catholicism: Activist Practices and Intimate Negotiations in Poland, 1930-Present funded by the National Science Center Poland.

Agnieszka Kosiorowska - Doctoral School of Humanities, University of Warsaw

Agnieszka Kosiorowska is an anthropologist and PhD candidate at the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of Warsaw. Currently conducting research concerning Catholicism and reproduction among Polish migrants in Paris.

 

Natalia Pomian - Doctoral School of Humanities, University of Warsaw

Natalia Pomian is an anthropologist and PhD student at the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of Warsaw. She is preparing a dissertation on infertility treatment therapies, with particular focus on naprotechnology, considered to be a method consistent with Catholic morality.

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LUD. Organ Polskiego Towarzystwa Ludoznawczego

Pobrania

Opublikowane

2021-12-21 — zaktualizowane 2021-12-22

Jak cytować

1.
KOŚCIAŃSKA, Agnieszka, KOSIOROWSKA, Agnieszka & POMIAN, Natalia. “A woman should follow her own conscience”: understanding Catholic involvement in demonstrations against the abortion ban in Poland. LUD. Organ Polskiego Towarzystwa Ludoznawczego [online]. 22 grudzień 2021, T. 105, s. 12–43. [udostępniono 7.7.2025]. DOI 10.12775/lud105.2021.01.

Numer

Tom 105 (2021)

Dział

ARTYKUŁY

Licencja

Prawa autorskie (c) 2021 Agnieszka Kościańska, Agnieszka Kosiorowska, Natalia Pomian

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