The Polish government has been accused of launching a “sexual counter-revolution” that is an affront to European values after passing legislation reducing women’s access to the morning-after pill.

A law signed off by the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, in defiance of human rights groups and European medicines agency guidelines turns emergency contraception into a prescription drug.

Women and girls 15 and over will now need to make an appointment with a doctor. Polish campaigners and MEPs in Brussels say the change will have the greatest impact on rape victims and those living in isolated areas of the country.

The Dutch liberal MEP, Sophie in ’t Veld, said the legislation was a violation of shared European values.

“The current populist national-conservative Polish government is enforcing a sexual counter-revolution, against the health interests and wishes of Polish women and girls,” she said.

“Restricting access to the morning-after pill, combined with the right of doctors to refuse treatment based on religious grounds, will have far reaching consequences.”

The European commissioner for health, Vytenis Andriukaitis, “personally regretted” the Polish government’s legislation, a spokesman said.



A cross-party group of members of the European parliament visited Poland in May to talk to campaigners about their concerns with the legislation, and other aspects of the government’s attitude to reproductive health.

But while there are deep concerns in Brussels over an array of legislation passed by Poland’s rightwing Law and Justice government, the relevant area of law falls firmly within the competences of member states.

A spokesman for the International Planned Parenthood Federation said: “On women’s rights, we are faced with a two-speed European Union where girls living in the right place can get free contraception, including over-the-counter emergency contraception, while others face an uphill struggle.

“In Poland, even if you are a teenage rape victim, you will now have to fight to find a doctor who might, or might not, help you.

“The new Polish law passed by the country’s chauvinist authorities allow abuse of power by doctors who may feel that they have a right to judge the sexual lives of women based on their own moral convictions. As Europeans we cannot stay still and watch.”

Poland’s health minister, Konstanty Radziwiłł, has claimed the legislation was necessary as hormonal means of contraception were being abused and could result in harmful health effects.



But in 2014 the EMA’s committee for medicinal products for human use advised that ellaOne, the most widely stocked morning-after pill in Poland, “can be used safely and effectively without medical prescription”.

Draginja Nadaždin, director of Amnesty International in Poland, said of the legislation: “We consider it as another blow to women’s rights, will affect teenagers and those in remote rural areas, and will have a particularly catastrophic impact on rape survivors.”

Poland also has some of the most restrictive laws on abortion in Europe. Current legislation bans all terminations unless a pregnancy is the result of incest or rape, it presents a health risk to the mother or if the foetus is found to be severely deformed.



Last year the Polish parliament rejected a bill proposed by the government that would have permitted abortions only in cases where a woman’s life was at risk. MPs were stirred into opposition in part by street protests attended by tens of thousands of women.