Sadly, reports of the demise of the Polish abortion ban are (probably) exaggerated.

Much has been made of today's speech by Polish Minister for Science Jarosław Gowin, in which he said the mass strike and protests by Polish women has 'caused us to think and taught us humility'. Many, including the Guardian, see this as a 'signal', 'appearing to indicate' a potential U-turn.

It's important to put this within the context of Polish politics. The ultra-conservative Justice and Law Party - which has held a majority in the Sejm since the 2015 election - has not officially endorsed this bill. The bill has been proposed by a handful of deputies on the far-right of the Party, in tandem with a petition of 450,000 opposing all abortions, collected by pro-life NGOs. Gowin's speech should be seen as a partisan intervention into an interfactional political struggle within the government of Poland - not yet a signal of victory for Polish women.

This flirtation with medievalist restrictions on abortion are part of a wider attack on Polish women's rights, and part of Law and Justice's Faustian pact with the Catholic Church. It's likely to take more than a few protests to cow the government into whipping against the bill and killing it stone dead. Direct action is the crowbar Polish women can force into the cracks already appearing in the government's façade.