Warsaw protests put an end to a proposal for an absolute ban on abortions in Poland

It was the umbrellas that got us. That was all you could see in the photo, taken from above.

Thousands of umbrellas filling the streets of Warsaw.

And below them, thousands of women protesting a proposal to ban abortions in Poland.

All abortions. No matter the circumstances.

The measure would also punish women who got an abortion, as well as doctors who performed them, with up to five years in jail.

But the protest worked. The country's leaders now say they don't support a total ban and that the women's protests "taught us humility." On Thursday, Parliament formally rejected the bill.

"The PiS has backtracked because it was scared by all the women who hit the streets in protest," liberal member of parliament and former prime minister Ewa Kopacz told AFP following the committee vote. "But the fight isn't over yet," she warned, noting that the bill still needs to be rejected by a majority of lawmakers.

And the BBC adds: "The deputy prime minister told Radio Koszalin in northern Poland that the current abortion exceptions would remain. 'I want to reassure those who fear that in Poland abortion will be completely prohibited,' he said. 'A total ban certainly won't get through. Abortion will certainly not be banned when the woman is the victim of rape or if her life or her health is in danger,' he added." 

Poland's influential Catholic Church gave the initiative its seal of approval earlier this year, though its bishops have since opposed jailing women.

As for the actual women protesting on the streets, there is a mix of emotions. One of those Polish women who took to the streets was Magda Szczesniak.

“On one hand I feel very positive that a social protest that was indeed very large in size actually worked,” says Szczesniak. “On the other hand, I’m not super optimistic about what conservative government is up to. So I’m not so sure they back out completely or whether they are planning to propose a new abortion bill.”

Passed in 1993, the current restrictive law bans all abortions unless there was rape or incest, the pregnancy poses a health risk to the mother or the fetus is severely deformed. According to the Associated Press, "some doctors, citing moral objections, refuse to perform even legal abortions. Polish women seeking abortions typically get them in Germany or other neighboring countries or order abortion pills online."

A poll published last month by the Newsweek Polska magazine showed that 74 percent of Poles want to keep the existing law.

The country of 38 million people sees fewer than 2,000 legal abortions a year, but women's groups estimate that another 100,000 to 150,000 procedures are performed illegally or abroad.

"Even if they are in this position they actually could get a legal abortion — if they have been raped or there is danger to their lives — very often doctors refuse to perform abortions," says Szczesniak. "And then women, due to lack of time, to look for other places. There is a massive abortion underground, which performs abortions, illegally and often in circumstance that are very dangerous for women."

Szczesniak says that women with financial ability head to the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Germany to receive care. From her point of view, even without the proposal to ban all abortions, a political fight remains.

"I think the protests will go on," she says. "But I think something has changed in the atmoshpere in Poland. Something has changed in the public sphere. I've been to many demonstrations both for women's rights and LGBT equality parades and so on. And I have never felt this energy that people felt on the streets in Warsaw on Monday. There was a real sense of urgency, of anger, but also a real sense of community and sisterhood. So I think this is something that, even if the government backs off, won't just go away."

"Protests will continue. Women in Poland will fight for a more liberal abortion law." 

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.