Polish abortion legal guidelines are already among the many strictest within the European Union and a brand new measure to document all pregnancies in Poland will exacerbate the scenario for girls, say critics. Early this month, Polish Well being Minister Adam Niedzielski signed an order that requires docs so as to add extra information to the nation’s Medical Info System, together with whether or not an individual is pregnant.
A primary draft of the order had already surfaced in 2021, triggering fierce resistance. Opposition chief Donald Tusk, of the Civic Platform get together, criticized the plan and mentioned that the ruling Legislation and Justice, or PiS, get together was obsessive about management and coercion.
One other member of Tusk’s get together, Tomasz Grodzki, who can also be chief of the Polish Senate, puzzled aloud whether or not one ought to examine the variety of pregnancies with the variety of births in an effort to observe unlawful abortions.
Within the wake of such criticism, the draft vanished.
Measure comes into drive in October
Nevertheless, the thought didn’t. The United Proper coalition, which incorporates PiS and the Solidarity Poland get together and which has been in energy since 2015, didn’t write off the thought.
Many Poles imagine the Catholic Church has an excessive amount of affect on the federal government
The Catholic Church, which has instrumental in making the nation’s abortion legal guidelines a number of the most restrictive in Europe, has a variety of affect on these conservative events. Presently, a lady in Poland can solely resort to abortion if her well being or life is endangered or the being pregnant is the results of a rape.
The order to register pregnancies is now set to come back into drive in mid-June, two weeks after its signing, however transmission of the info will solely change into obligatory from October 1.
At a debate within the decrease home of the Polish parliament, the Sejm, this week, Waldemar Kraska, a deputy well being minister and PiS member, defended the measure. “We aren’t establishing a being pregnant register,” he insisted. “We simply need medical professionals to have the widest attainable entry to information about every particular person affected person in order to offer them with one of the best medical assist and to keep away from all attainable hurt.” He additionally accused the opposition of “spreading lies.”
“I do not assume I’ve to clarify to the docs on this home how necessary it’s to know whether or not a sick girl is pregnant or not,” he mentioned, explaining that the medical register had been expanded to incorporate details about implants, blood varieties and allergic reactions too.
Well being ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz even argued that the register had been expanded on the idea of suggestions from the European Fee. He mentioned it could assist to offer higher safety to sufferers on overseas journeys.
“Terrifying”
Many Polish ladies are considering twice earlier than having kids
Politician Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bak from the Lewica, or Left, get together, which requested the talk within the Sejm, mentioned that “a being pregnant registry in a rustic with an nearly full ban on abortion is terrifying.”
She argued {that a} registry might be used for “both good or dangerous functions” however within the arms of an influence that had made the lives of ladies hell, had restricted to proper to authorized abortion and refused contraception in circumstances of emergency, such an instrument may show problematic.
Barbara Nowacka from the Civic Platform identified that younger Polish ladies now not wished to have kids as a result of they have been afraid of the state. She mentioned that in her opinion, the registry would probably be used as “an instrument of intimidation.”
The birthrate has been declining steadily in Poland. Solely 23,000 kids have been born in February of this 12 months, the bottom quantity in a single month since World Warfare II.
Michal Gramatyka from opposition get together, Poland 2050, mentioned that such a register may make sense in a “regular” nation however not in Poland. Referring to the rising powers of authorities in Poland, he requested a rhetorical query: “How can we imagine that solely docs can have entry to this info?”
In Thursday’s version of the left-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza every day newspaper, an editorial by native creator, Katarzyna Wezyk, tried to reassure by declaring that even after the measure got here into drive, ladies wouldn’t face punishment below any legislation within the occasion of a spontaneous abortion or a synthetic termination of being pregnant.
“If this registry was designed as an instrument of strain, then it has no enamel,” she wrote. “Regardless of the efforts of anti-choice organizations, Poland isn’t a second El Salvador.”
A lady who loses her little one faces as much as 30 years in jail within the Central American state. In Poland, a lady who undergoes an abortion can’t be punished below present legal guidelines. Nevertheless, there ARE jail sentences of as much as three years for many who carry out an abortion illegally, help in an unlawful abortion or persuade a lady to bear an abortion.
This text was translated from German.