Wojtek, I asked before but you didn't answer --
What was the situation in Poland with respect to abortion pre-1989? I assume it was legal, but what were attitudes like about it?
[WS:] Sorry, I must have missed your query.
It was legal but not covered by the public health care system, unless medically necessary. The procedure was performed mainly by private practitioners to the tune of an average monthly wage. The Catholics were not happy about it, but it was a very popular procedure due to a low use of contraceptives (which in turn was due to prudishness and lack of sex education) and a stigma attached to out of wedlock pregnancy. AFAIR, there was some petition drive in the 1970s by catholic activists to outlaw abortion, but it did not get much popular support. It might have changed during the 1980s, as the martial law provided a tremendous windfall for the catholic church, but I already left that backwater by then.
I think the situation in Poland was rather typical of rural pre-modern but developing societies: a mixture of prudery, patriarchy, and prevalent 'crisis solving' mentality instead o planning ahead. While the communists tried to modernize the public attitudes toward sex and 'women's issues in general - they did not get very far due to staunch populist entrenchment of these backward attitudes. It was much easier to take people out of podunks than taking the podunk out of people.
The post 1989 ban on abortion was mainly an appeasement and placating the catholic church and these Podunk sentiments. The opposition to that ban came mainly from the educated urban classes, but it was not enough to stop it.
Wojtek