’Defend the Churches,’ says Poland’s defiant leader as protests rage on

Jarosław Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s ultraconservative ruling party, is refusing to back down faced with a wave of anger across the country over abortion restrictions. Protests erupted after the Constitutional Court, which Kaczynski effectively controls, ruled that abortion should be illegal even in cases of severe foetal abnormality – an exception to the country’s abortion ban that accounted for 98% of legal abortions performed in Poland. Opinion in the Catholic country is evenly divided over whether abortion should be available on demand, but a majority are against the near-total ban that will now be put in place. Gulliver Cragg, Magdalena Chodownik, and Kuba Kaminski report from Warsaw. Subscribe to France 24 now: FRANCE 24 live news stream: all the latest news 24/7 Visit our website: Subscribe to our YouTube channel: Like us on Fac