‘Try harder!’: Poland’s women demand Tusk act over abortion promises

Prime minister pledged to liberalise country’s strict laws within 100 days of taking office – but time is ticking away

Ashifa Kassam
Tue 6 Feb 2024

Wielding placards that read “The revolution has a uterus” and “My body, my choice,” they poured on to the streets of Poland, defying coronavirus restrictions and sub-zero temperatures to take part in the country’s largest protests since the fall of communism.

Three years on, the battle against Poland’s draconian abortion measures has moved from the streets to the country’s legislature, in what campaigners describe as a crucial test of the country’s new government.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/06/poland-women-donald-tusk-abortion-promises

06.02.2024

Poland: Abortion Witch Hunt Targets Women, Doctors

Criminalization, Pursuit of Alleged Offenders Violates Rights

September 14, 2023
Human Rights Watch

(London) – Poland’s government is targeting people for alleged abortion-related activities, intensifying a climate of fear that heightens risks for women and girls, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch released a video highlighting how the government’s dubious use of its powers to chase down alleged abortion-related activity threatens people’s rights to privacy, autonomy, and health, amongst others.

Since a near-ban on legal abortion in 2020, Polish officials have increasingly opened investigations on questionable legal grounds against women and girls seeking medical care for miscarriages or after legal medication abortions, as well as against doctors. Polish law does not criminalize having an abortion but rather anyone who provides or assists someone in having an abortion outside of highly restricted grounds. The government is apparently attempting to find a basis for prosecuting family members, friends, and healthcare providers for illegally providing or assisting abortions.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/14/poland-abortion-witch-hunt-targets-women-doctors

Police at the hospital: Abortion battle heats up in Poland

The case of a humiliating police operation in response to a woman who’d taken an abortion pill has intensified debate over whether Poland’s abortion laws have gone too far.

Jacek Lepiarz
July 23, 2023

The leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, likes to surround himself with women at campaign events. He courts them in the old Polish manner with a kiss on the hand, but such gestures belie the fact that his right-wing nationalist party is actually at war with the country's women.

An ever closer alliance between the Polish government and the Catholic Church has led to a radical tightening of abortion laws in recent years. In 2020, the PiS-controlled Constitutional Court removed the risk of serious fetal malformation as a condition allowing for legal abortion, creating a climate of fear and mistrust among doctors and women.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/police-at-the-hospital-abortion-battle-heats-up-in-poland/a-66319325

Police intervention against woman in hospital after taking abortion pills triggers outcry in Poland

JUL 19, 2023
Notes from Poland

Police intervention against a woman hospitalised after taking abortion pills has caused an outcry in Poland. Opposition politicians have condemned the incident – parts of which were caught on film – and called for the dismissal of the chief of police.

Officers are said to have surrounded the woman, who was reportedly ordered to undress, do squats and cough even though she was still bleeding. They also seized the woman’s computer and phone.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/07/19/police-intervention-against-woman-in-hospital-after-taking-abortion-pills-triggers-outcry-in-poland/

“Undress, Squat, Cough” — Police In Poland Ramp Up The Abortion Crackdown

Poland, known for having some of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, only allows the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is at risk. But even when abortions are performed legally, women can be met with criminal accusations from the police.

Dominika Wantuch
July 19, 2023

KRAKOW — Poland's conservative government has made restricting abortion access a guiding pillar since returning to power in 2015. Now that appears to include orders to police to detain women seeking access to terminate a pregnancy in the case of health risks, one of the few exceptions to the strict national abortion ban.

One Polish woman, identified as "Joanna" told police this week that police detained her, saying she had been pressured into having an abortion. She had purchased abortion pills on her own volition after health problems, and had decided to take them, which is not punishable in Poland.

Continued: https://worldcrunch.com/culture-society/poland-abortion-police-crackdown

19.07.2023

News

Abortion Dream Team

Dorota death

European Court of Human Rights

Foundation of Women’s Affairs and Family Planning

Lawyer unfazed by Poland abortion rights case defeat at ECHR

Polish women challenging Warsaw's abortion laws at the European Court of Human Rights had their cases dismissed, but many more are still to come.

Ella Joyner in Brussels
Jun 8, 2023

A Polish lawyer who oversaw the case of eight women challenging their country’s abortion laws at the European Court of Human Rights told DW she was undeterred after their complaints were deemed inadmissible on Thursday.

"We were quite aware that the court might not agree with us at this point," Kamila Ferenc, a lawyer and vice-president of the Polish Foundation for Women and Family Planning (FEDERA), told DW on the phone.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/lawyer-unfazed-by-poland-abortion-rights-case-defeat-at-echr/a-65862834

Women call for tougher EU stance on Poland’s abortion laws

At least six women have died in Poland after doctors refused to terminate their pregnancies due to the constitutional court’s ruling on abortions.

By Priyanka Shankar
Published On 18 Nov 2022

Brussels, Belgium – Fighting for justice and women’s rights in Poland has become an integral part of Barbara Skrobol’s life since September 22, 2021.

This was the day her sister-in-law, Izabela Sajbor, died of sepsis at a hospital in southern Poland after doctors refused to terminate her pregnancy after finding foetal defects, due to Poland’s stringent abortion rules.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/11/18/women-call-for-tougher-eu-stance-on-polands-abortion-laws

Protests flare across Poland after death of young mother denied an abortion

Family of Agnieszka T say they want to ‘save other women in Poland from a similar fate’, as case met with anger over restrictive termination laws

Weronika Strzyżyńska
Fri 28 Jan 2022

Protests are under way across Poland after the death of a 37-year-old woman this week who was refused an abortion, a year since the country introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

On the streets of Warsaw on Tuesday night, protesters laid wreaths and lanterns in memory of Agnieszka T, who died earlier that day. She was pregnant with twins when one of the foetus’ heartbeat stopped and doctors refused to carry out an abortion. In a statement, her family accused the government of having “blood on its hands”. Further protests are planned in Częstochowa, the city in southern Poland where the mother-of-three was from.

Continued : https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/27/protests-flare-across-poland-after-death-of-young-mother-denied-an-abortion

Death threats and phone calls: the women answering cries for help one year on from Poland’s abortion ban

As new laws hit the most vulnerable pregnant women in need of care, volunteers struggle to help those unable to access safe abortions

Rosie Swash and Weronika Strzyżyńska in Warsaw
The Guardian
Sun 23 Jan 2022

An Abortion Dream Team member became the first Polish abortion activist to face the prospect of trial in September, after a man notified the police that his wife ordered abortion pills online. The case is ongoing.

Ferenc believes the latest changes did not fully appease the ruling Law and Justice party’s (PiS) religious base. “Before, abortion was not a topic, no one wanted to talk about it. Now the anti-abortion groups on whose support PiS is relying are demanding blood.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/23/death-threats-and-phone-calls-the-women-answering-cries-for-help-one-year-on-from-polands-abortion-ban

Death toll of antiabortion law in Poland

Press release - Federation for Women and Family Planning
2 November 2021
https://en.federa.org.pl/death-toll-of-antiabortion-law-in-poland/

On 29 October 2021, the attorney J. Budzowska, who deals with medical error cases, announced the death of a 30-year-old woman, Izabela. The 22 weeks’ pregnant woman was said to have been taken to the hospital with an amenorrhea (lack of amniotic fluid). The woman was married and had one daughter. According to the information provided by the attorney, the doctors were to wait for the foetus to die and the woman died shortly after of septic shock.

The prosecutor’s investigation into the circumstances of the woman’s death is ongoing and no more information is available at this point. The director of the hospital in its statement assured that all medical decisions in this case were taken in accordance with the Polish law. This is in itself not reassuring because Polish antiabortion law exposes women’s lives and health to risk.

On 1 November, candles were lit across Poland as a part of the campaign called "Ani Jednej Więcej", initiated by the Federation for Women and Family Planning in solidarity with the family of the deceased woman. Protests were yet again held in front of the illegitimate Constitutional Tribunal that a year ago banned abortion on the grounds of “the severe and irreversible foetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the foetus life”. As a result of this ruling, legal abortion may be accessed when pregnancy constitutes a threat to the woman's life or health and if it results from the criminal act.

This is another victim of the Polish antiabortion law – in 2004, a 25-year-old woman died of pregnancy complications that could have been avoided by a timely abortion.

“Instead of protecting the life of the woman, the doctors think of saving the foetus. This is the chilling effect of the Constitutional Tribunal's decision in action." said Kamila Ferenc, the lawyer at the Federation for Women and Family Planning.