Cars plastered with drastic images of fetuses in blood, billboards with accusations at specific hospitals, and an increasing number of pickets in front of hospitals – anti-abortion movements are fighting by all means to ban abortions of damaged fetuses. Will hospitals come under pressure?
A few days ago, opponents of abortion gathered in front of the hospital in Oleśnica. They put up killing banners, a small coffin and candles. They prayed the rosary aloud.
On its website, the “Pro – Right to Life” foundation compared abortions in a hospital in Oleśnica to the practices of the Nazi extermination camps. Billboards showing torn fetuses appeared in the city, calling for an end to abortion.
The organizers of the campaign announce that they will appear regularly in front of the hospital in Oleśnica until they are successful. Similar demonstrations are held in front of hospitals all over Poland almost every day. According to Mariusz Dzierżawski from “Pro – Right to Life”, this year the number of pickets will reach one thousand, which is twice as many as last year. Besides, they are organized on a bigger scale.
Abortion slaughterhouse No. 1 in Poland
In front of the Hospital of Orłowski in Warsaw, a beetle has been stuck in the parking lot for several months, covered with drastic photos and the slogan “Abortion slaughterhouse No. 1 in Poland”. A similar vehicle has recently appeared at the Bielany Hospital in Warsaw, as well as at the Institute of Mother and Child.
Also new are street screenings of films showing fetal tearing during an abortion. They are displayed on portable screens or on buildings in the busiest places in the capital – at Castle Square or in front of the Centrum metro station.
It is no coincidence that the actions intensified at a time when the Sejm is preparing a clash between supporters and opponents of abortion. They prepared opposing projects. The bill that tightens abortion, submitted by the Legislative Initiative Committee # StopAborcja, prohibits the so-called eugenic abortion, that is, due to a serious defect of the fetus. Over half a million signatures were collected under it, support was declared, among others, by Prime Minister Beata Szydło and President Andrzej Duda.
But the Sejm also received a civil bill with the opposite content, legalizing abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy. Almost an equal number of signatures was collected under the initiative “Save Women 2017”.
How will it be?
Perhaps, however, the matter will be resolved in a different way, because at the same time a group of over a hundred MPs from PiS, Kukiz’15, Wolni i Solidarni and non-members asked the Constitutional Tribunal to examine the constitutional compliance with the provisions allowing abortion due to fetal impairment or serious illness. threatening his life.
Law and Justice MP Bartłomiej Wróblewski, the author of the motion, hopes that the position of the Constitutional Tribunal will be similar to that in the judgment of 1997, when the provision allowing abortion due to the difficult life situation of a woman was declared unconstitutional. President Julia Przyłębska has already declared that the Constitutional Tribunal will consider the case as a full bench within a few months and called for calm waiting for the verdict.
The dispute between supporters and opponents of abortion has repeatedly swept through the Seym. This time, however, the probability of changing the so-called the abortion compromise is very large. The current compromise has existed since January 7, 1993, when the Act on Family Planning, Protection of the Human Fetus and Conditions Permitting Termination of Pregnancy Limited the legality of termination of pregnancy to three cases: a threat to the mother’s life and health, a high probability of severe and irreversible impairment of the fetus or an incurable disease that threatens its life. , as well as situations where pregnancy resulted from a prohibited act.
We will do our job
A foretaste of the fuss that such a change will provoke is provided by anti-abortion demonstrations in front of hospitals and the emotional responses they trigger. Piotr Rogalski, the medical deputy director of the hospital in Oleśnica, ensures that the hospital will not succumb to the group of extremists and will perform all the procedures provided for in the contract with the National Health Fund. As she emphasizes, no abortion was performed against the law, and patients have the right to these services. On the other hand, failure to comply with contractual procedures could expose the hospital to consequences.
Deputy Director Rogalski also points out that about a thousand children will be born in the hospital this year. Four couples decided to give birth under a prenatal hospice. – The choice is always up to the mother. Let’s not judge someone’s consciences – adds Rogalski.
The hospital has now called on the Foundation to remove the billboards and brought a libel case to court.
Mariusz Dzierżawski replies: – We are not afraid of lawsuits. For two years, the Pro Familia hospital in Rzeszów sued us and we won. And the hospital stopped aborting. We will be in Oleśnica regularly, we hope for a similar result.
The Bielański Hospital in Warsaw has similar problems, where the Foundation has a permanent exhibition in the form of a wrapped car, and also conducts regular pickets. – People are outraged, they intervene with me, demanding that the hospital refuse to spoil its good reputation. But legally, we cannot prohibit anti-abortion movements, says Dorota Gałczyńska-Zych, director of the Bielański Hospital.
As the director adds, the hospital has become the arena of an ideological dispute. – I am a woman, but as a hospital director, I leave my private views on the hospital’s doorstep. As doctors, we try not to get involved in the conflict, but simply to follow the applicable law, he says.
If a ban on eugenic abortion is introduced, she emphasizes, the hospital will abide by the law. But, in her opinion, many people will not accept the ban and will take to the streets.
– Women will not agree to be deprived of their free will, which is the norm in the modern world. And the problem itself will not go away, but will go underground. In the era of open borders, women will find help outside the country – adds director Zych-Gałczyńska.