Strategie nacisku. Prasa kobieca w latach 1956–1959 a dostęp do w pełni legalnej aborcji w PRL-u
Strategies of pressure. Women’s magazines between 1956-1959 on Access to legal abortion in Polish Peoples Republic

Author(s): Adam Konopka
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Sociology of Culture
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: abortion; Polish People’s Republic; women’s press; press campaign
Summary/Abstract: In 1956, Polish authorities introduced an act on conditions of abortion permissibity, which was supposed to increase the availability of legal and safe abortions for women. However, due to numerous problems, the act could have not been implemented, pushing women to the abortion underground, until the end of 1959, when the minister of health published a disposition, which stated, that the only condition required for an abortion was an oral statement of a woman that she is not able to give birth to a child. The author conducted an analysis of texts, published in women’s magazines between the introduction of the act and the introduction of 1959’s disposition – “Kobieta i Życie” and “Przyjaciółka” – and a daily newspaper commited to the idea of planned parenthood – “Życie Warszawy”, that have covered the matter of necessity of changing the law into such, that would actually let women have abortions when they would need it. The analysis outlines the problems, which the authors have listed as the reasons of the law’s ineffectiveness, postulates of changes in the legislation and the rhetorical means used to convince the authorities to reform the act.

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