Polish women mark Women's Day protesting abortion ban

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Women's rights activists in Poland marked International Women's Day on Monday caught between reasons to celebrate and a heavy sense that they are facing a long battle ahead.

This year's Women's Day, which is being marked with protests, comes after a near total ban on abortion took effect in January in the historically Roman Catholic country, a step that had long been been sought by the conservative ruling party, Law and Justice.

But as Polish Women's Strike leader Marta Lempart told The Associated Press ahead of a protest in Warsaw, Poland is also a country that is undergoing rapid secularization, with support growing for a liberalized abortion law.

She and other movement leaders are convinced that the process of social change ultimately will favor their struggle for reproductive freedom. Monday's protest focuses on abortion rights, but also includes calls for greater state support for in vitro procedures and sexual education.

“We have reasons to celebrate because we are a mass movement, we are the only country that is becoming secular so quickly and that is becoming feminist so quickly," Lempart said.

Around her, supporters of the Women's Strike poured into its Warsaw office, preparing banners and other materials for the protest.

“We keep fighting. I don't see a way to stop it,” said Klementyna Suchanow, another Women's Strike leader and the author of a book “This is War: Women, Fundamentalists, and the new Middle Ages," about global efforts by ultra-conservatives to roll back women's rights.

“We are under attack by religious radicals, and this is an international movement. so we women in different countries, we need to face it and fight against it," she said. "It's something that is happening to all of us: to Argentinians, to...