Saturday, November 6th, 2021
Abortion law in Poland
Tens of thousands protest after the death of a 30-year-old
Poland has tightened its already restrictive abortion law. A woman died in a hospital as a result of her difficult pregnancy. That puts tens of thousands of people on the streets across the country.
After the death of a pregnant woman, tens of thousands of people across Poland demonstrated against the rigid abortion law in their country. On protest marches in the capital Warsaw, for example, they chanted “Not a single one anymore” and held up photos of 30-year-old Izabela, who had died in a hospital. According to information from women’s rights groups, she is the first victim of the almost complete ban on abortion that has been in place for a year.
Izabela had died in a hospital in Pszczyna in the south of the country; she was 22 weeks pregnant with major problems. “The doctors have been waiting for the fetus to die. The fetus is dead, the patient is dead, septic shock,” said the family lawyer, Jolanta Budzowska. The fate of Izabela has intensified the protests that have been taking place again and again against the almost complete ban on abortion, which has been in place for a year.
With the support of the government, the Supreme Court also declared the abortion of severely malformed fetuses to be unconstitutional in October last year, thereby further tightening the already very restrictive abortion law in Poland. Since then, there have been repeated mass protests against the verdict, which intensified on the anniversary of the verdict and with the death of Izabela.
In Poland there are fewer than 2000 legally performed abortions each year. However, women’s rights organizations estimate that around 200,000 Polish women have illegal abortions or go abroad for it every year.