The topic of abortion greatly ignites emotions. From time to time, there are initiatives aimed at the total ban on termination of pregnancy. A complete ban on abortion has not yet been enforced in Poland due to women’s protests.
- In Poland, abortion is illegal. Pregnancy can only be terminated in certain cases, e.g. because of serious damage to the fetus.
- According to the data of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration, 2015 abortions were performed in 1044
As reported by Newsweek, MP Wróblewski, together with a group of 100 MPs, believes that abortion due to serious damage, handicap or incurable disease that threatens the life of the fetus is unconstitutional and wants to submit an application to the Constitutional Tribunal. it will only depend on his decision whether and under what circumstances the pregnancy can be terminated. According to specialists, the tightening of regulations is not a solution, because the problem lies elsewhere. – A profound change in the education of health care workers is necessary, because there are more and more doctors qualified to diagnose prenatal defects in the fetus and they should refer parents to specialized prenatal aid centers, of which there are currently too few. There, parents should obtain professional and reliable medical help and support. The task of doctors is to relieve suffering, especially in critical situations when hope seems to be lacking. Centers should be established: home hospices, specialist teams of doctors, e.g. gynecologist-obstetrician, oncologist, pediatric cardiologist, pediatric surgeon, specialist in palliative care, clinical psychologist, social worker, geneticist, also a priest – says Ewa Ślizień-Kuczapska, obstetrician – a gynecologist from the St. Zofia in Warsaw, ProFamilia2000, president of the Polish Association of Teachers of Natural Family Planning.
The woman is left alone
Information that a sick or handicapped child may be born can knock many parents off their feet. There is no shortage of women who are ready to take this risk. They hope that with the support of their partner and the state it will be somehow, after all, it is their child after all. But the reality is quite different. – I respect people who decide to give birth to and raise a sick child, that they prefer to give birth and then live and watch their child die a little each day. How powerless they are against this. I know a woman whose husband left when it turned out that her daughter had Down’s syndrome after giving birth, and she was left alone with three children. I know a family who decided to give birth to a child without a skull with a rudimentary brain. Term pregnancy. The child lived an hour. Parents said goodbye to her and buried her. I also know a wealthy, God-fearing woman who gave birth to a child with Down syndrome and now does not leave the house with him – she is ashamed of him. The love for one’s own child was defeated by the famous “what will people say”. And people are cruel – says anonymously a gynecologist from one of the district hospitals.
Freedom of choice
The black protest that poured through Poland last year showed that many women are fed up with the fact that politicians decide for them. The restrictive law was not introduced. Will the idea of a PiS MP make women go to the streets again to fight for the right to choose? – But is there a provision in the Constitution of our state regarding the right of parents to raise a disabled child? Parents (and undoubtedly a woman) should be able to choose not to continue pregnancy when a seriously ill child is to be born, which will be a burden for society, for parents. And in this case, abortion is called a sub-goal situation – you have to choose the lesser evil. Why? Because in such a situation, both continuing the pregnancy is a bad option and terminating it. The decision should be made by the people who are directly affected by it – believes prof. Romuald Dębski, head of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic, CMKP, Bielański Hospital in Warsaw.
Prof. Dębski adds that in his practice he met patients who brought referrals for termination of pregnancy from geneticists, e.g. due to clubfoot (limb defects requiring correction during surgery). Then nobody in their right mind thinks about an abortion! However, you need to be aware that there are irreversible and fatal diseases associated with the risk of abnormal postnatal development, intellectual and physical disability, where parents should answer the question whether they are ready for it? The task of doctors is to respect the decisions of parents, because the problem concerns mainly them. If they undertake to raise a child with a serious illness, damage, that is their business. It happens that parents at the beginning declare that they will raise a child with Down syndrome, but after a few months or years, the problem becomes beyond them.
– It is the parents who have the right to decide, because the burden is placed on them. Not MP X, not politician, not priest or bishop. It is the parents (and most often the mother) who give up work, career, development, previous life, and dreams. Suddenly, the perspective changes dramatically, because staying at home with a problem that is difficult to bear, results in many further problems – finances dramatically shrink, family, friends turn away. Where is the support from the state? Lack! These are the Polish realities. There are women who will find themselves in this situation. And those that will live alongside the problem, but there are also those that cannot bear the burden. I do not think that any Member has the right to tell these ladies what to do. Especially that such a “decision-maker”, if it turned out that the situation “hit” him, he would come to me, explaining that the situation is extremely special, because it concerns his wife, daughter, sister. I have done it many times, so I believe that a woman should be able to make a decision – a woman, no one else – emphasizes prof. Debski.
Abortion tourism
We live in a country of 40 million. There were 2015 legal abortions in 1040. At the same time, in Sweden, almost 10 million, there were over 38 such procedures. Statistics are compiled on the basis of medical records by medical entities and sent by them to the Ministry of Health. Regardless of whether the patient comes to the hospital with a pending miscarriage caused by the use of a miscarriage, or it is a spontaneous miscarriage, or even if it is a hospital-induced miscarriage without recording this fact in the medical records (the doctor would be criminally liable and liable for professional), it is not possible to identify these cases on the basis of official data. Only an analysis of medical records could possibly provide any clue on this, but it is still unlikely. The introduction of further restrictions will lead to an increase in the number of illegal and not always safe abortions performed in the so-called the abortion underground. We will not find out about most of them from the reported statistics, as emphasized by Natalia Jakacka, a doctor on post-graduate internship at the Orłowski in Warsaw. The doctor adds that the very decision to terminate a pregnancy, when the fetus is diagnosed with a lethal defect, has nothing to do with eugenics, because no matter at what stage the pregnancy is terminated, this individual will not be able to pass on their genes to the next generations. Therefore, calling the above-mentioned premise an indication for “eugenic abortion” is a purely rhetorical procedure.
These are just statistics
Data on the number of abortion procedures are collected separately from the miscarriage statistics, ie on the basis of reports prepared in connection with the implementation of the “Program of statistical surveys, public statistics” for a given year. In 2014, 971 abortions were performed, a year later there were 1040. Most procedures were performed based on an incorrect prenatal test result (991 in 2014 and 996 in 2015). Due to the threat to the mother’s life and health, 48 and 43 procedures were performed, respectively. As a result of the so-called In 2014, two pregnancies were terminated, and in 2 only one.
The above statistics did not include the data of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice. Starting from 2012, the Ministry of Health asks these ministries annually for information on the number of abortion procedures performed in their subordinate hospitals in a given reporting period. According to the data obtained from the Ministry of Justice, no abortion procedures were performed in hospitals subordinate to the Minister of Justice in 2012-2015. In 2014, in hospitals subordinate to the Minister of the Interior and Administration, 977 abortions were registered in total (i.e. along with data from the Ministry of Interior and Administration), and in 2015 – 1044 such procedures.