LONDON -- Thousands of women took to the streets of Polish towns and cities on Monday to protest a proposed law seeking to impose a total ban on abortion in the country.

Two days on from the event -- dubbed "Black Monday" -- a member of Poland's government has said the proposed ban will not be implemented.

Jarosław Gowin -- the minister of science and higher education -- told the Associated Press that the protests and strikes had “caused us to think and taught us humility” and that the right wing Law and Justice party will withdraw support for the move.

Poland's Senate speaker Stanisław Karczewski said Poland’s upper house of parliament would not start work on a bill that would further tighten Poland’s already highly restrictive abortion law.

Karczewski added that senators would wait to see the lower house of parliament's stance on the law, however.

Under the proposed law — which had already cleared one parliamentary hurdle — women found to have had an abortion would face five-year prison sentences and any doctors assisting in abortions would also face prison. The proposed law also seeks to ban in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and could see women who miscarry being investigated on suspicion of having an abortion. 

Monday's strike saw thousands of women boycott workplaces and schools, and businesses closed their doors to protest the law.

Women took both paid and unpaid leave as part of the protest, and strikers staged a picket line — named the "Wall of Fury" — under the Law and Justice party's headquarters.