> So you think the Polish population is majority
> anti-abortion? I'd like to see some evidence, since I cited one poll and
> the Polish feminist movement saying the opposite.
I have no idea if they are majority anti-abortion. I'll take your word that the Polish feminist movement says they aren't although, as I said, from my own contacts with them they certainly don't seem to think the Polish public are pro-choice enough to actually do anything about it.
> OK, but I think you'll want to look at what's changed. There's been a
> backround drumbeat of 'personhood-from- conception,' (although this is a
> liberalizing of earlier life-from-before-conception, birth-control-is-murder
> position of the Church)
No, they're still opposed to birth control too.
> but my reading is that it's only gaining what little
> political traction it's gaining now because of birth rate and immigration
> fears. Again, I'm not talking about the Church's official position, I'm
> talking about how people see it and take it in.
Well, that wasn't how it was portrayed in anything I read during the elections. There was a speaker from Italy at the last international abortion rights conference I went to, in September, and she didn't say anything about it either. I've no doubt this is a factor in some people's opposition to abortion but it doesn't appear to me to be anything like the major factor.
> Always starting when? I'd be interested to know--really, I'm not saying
> this rhetorically--in what other periods in Europe fear of immigrant hordes
> has been a factor in opposition to abortion.
I didn't mean Europe specifically, I was actually thinking of how it was used in 19th century America (specifically in regards to immigrant/ethnic Catholics, which I've always thought was something of an irony). Having said that though I would be very surprised if it wasn't a factor in the opposition of some members of the British parliament to the Abortion Act 1967, given that immigration was already a controversial issue there (Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech took place the following year). And certainly, anti-Jewish fears probably played a role in other parts of Europe.