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Tens of thousands of women took to the streets in dozens of Polish cities and towns for a nationwide strike on Wednesday to protest a top court’s decision to ban nearly all abortions, even as the nation’s leading politician urged his conservative supporters to “defend Poland.” The call by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the deputy prime minister and leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, to fight back against the protesters and his description of the opposition as “criminals” seeking to “destroy the Polish nation,” threatened to escalate an already tense moment in the deeply divided nation. (Santora, Pronczuk and Magdziarz, 10/28)

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Thursday that women themselves should have the right to abortion in case of congenitally damaged fetuses, apparently breaking ranks with a conservative leadership that pushed a ban that has led to mass street protests. “It cannot be that the law requires this kind of heroism from a woman,” Duda said in an interview with radio RMF FM. He spoke after seven straight days of huge protests across Poland following a constitutional court ruling declaring it unconstitutional to terminate a pregnancy due to fetal congenital defects. The ruling effectively bans almost all abortions in a country that already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws. (10/29)

Doctors in Poland can refuse to perform a legal abortion and may also refuse to prescribe contraception on religious grounds. And there is very little financial and psychological support for families of disabled children, who are left to fend for themselves once the child is born. In the court ruling, the tribunal’s president, Julia Przylebska, said that allowing abortions for fetal abnormalities legalized “eugenic practices.” Because Poland’s Constitution guarantees the protection of human life, she added, termination based on the health of a fetus amounted to “a directly forbidden form of discrimination. ”Protesters are demanding that the court reverse itself and a growing number are also calling for liberalization of the abortion law. (Pronczuk, 10/27)

Soldiers in Poland are giving coronavirus tests. American National Guard troops with medical training are headed to the Czech Republic to work alongside doctors there. A Czech university student is running blood samples to labs, and the mayor of the capital is taking shifts at a hospital. With cases surging in many central European countries, firefighters, students and retired doctors are being asked to help shore up buckling health care systems. (Janicek and Gera, 10/29)

One of the world’s longest novel coronavirus lockdowns wound down Wednesday morning, allowing roughly 5 million people in the Australian city of Melbourne to leave home anytime they want, eat dinner at a restaurant and drink at bars for the first time in more than three months. Celebrations ensued. Bookings at low-capacity bars and restaurants quickly filled up for weeks ahead. Businesses popped bottles of champagne as shoppers flocked to stores. Some, including, Kmart, opted to remain open for 24 hours to meet demand, local media reported. (Noori Farzan and Berger, 10/28)