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Poland's Paradox - Loss of Sexual and Reproductive Rights in a Democratic Poland The Politics of Morality: The Church, the State, and Reproductive Rights in Postsocialist Poland Joanna Mishtal (Ohio University Press 2015, 288 pp) 978-0821421406, $28.95
BY ANKA GRZYWACZ / / POSTED APR 25, 2016
It is impossible to discuss the current state of women's human rights in Poland without examining the growing democratization of the country over the last century, which went hand in hand with a gradual loss of sexual and reproductive rights. The Politics of Morality. The Church, the State, and Reproductive Rights in Postsocialist Poland examines the political and personal impacts of this decline in reproductive rights and health policies. Joanna Mishtal, a selfdescribed "accidental refugee" from Poland, used her 14 years of research to analyze how the discourse around sexuality and morality was used by the Polish Catholic church and politicians. The window into women's experiences and coping strategies best shows what they lost during this period.
Mishtal leads us through these complex sociopolitical developments in the first two chapters. In 1944, Poland lost its sovereignty and became subordinate to the Soviet Union. It shared the fate of many other countries in the region, including Czechoslovakia and Romania. These "people's democracies" had, in fact, been authoritarian or totalitarian states, ruled by communist parties under Moscow's command but maintaining the illusion of parliamentarian democracy. There was no free market, no free speech and no freedom of travel, and democratic opposition was brutally silenced. Marxist ideology was taught in schools and at universities, but people felt it was forced on them.
In the Polish People's Republic, which lasted from 1952 until 1989, women were encouraged to work, and the state offered myriad solutions to assist them in fulfilling their family obligations-for example, childcare was free and there were subsidized bars selling homestyle foods in every town. Abortion had also been legal...