The European Union Calls Warsaw to Order

On November 14, 2019, the European Parliament adopted a resolution - 471 votes in favor, 128 against, and 57 abstentions - to demand that the new Polish Diet reject a bill to criminalize sex education of minors. On the banks of the Vistula, where secularism does not yet reign supreme, they do not really appreciate this umpteenth interference on the part of the Union.

The controversy goes back a few weeks ago, when the Pro-Prawo do Życia (“Pro-Right to Life”) organization launched a petition with the title of “Stop Pedophilia,” gathering more than 265,000 signatures, in order to prohibit and punish any action aimed at the corruption of minors in the public space, especially in schools.

Having largely exceeded the 100,000 signatures required for its consideration, the popular initiative was received favorably by the outgoing Diet, on October 17, 2019, to become a bill: if it is approved, the sex education workshops organized for minors in some institutions would become illegal, under penalty of three years imprisonment for offenders.

Véronique Séhier, co-chair of family planning and the recorder for the Social Economic and Environmental Council (CESE)'s “threats against sexual rights” project warns: “A Polish woman should have the same rights as a French woman.”

The broad victory of the right-wing Law and Justice Party - Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (PiS) - in the parliamentary elections on October 13 should allow the Warsaw Diet to resist pressure from the Strasbourg Parliament. At least that is the hope, not only for Poland, but for all those who, in Europe, want to see this corruption of morals ceased by a body without legitimacy.