EM

The new proposed law, which started the current “abortion wars” in Poland, was submitted to the parliament by a citizens’ organization, Ordo Iuris. The project was immediately backed up by key figures in Polish politics: the prime minister, Beata Szydło; Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the right-wing Law and Justice Party, along with the majority of PiS parliament members; and the National Council of Bishops, who issued a letter supporting the complete criminalization of abortion.

This all happened over the last days of March, and immediately led to a massive women’s mobilization. Almost one hundred thousand women joined the new internet group against the legislation.

We have not seen such a mobilization since 1993, when the current law was installed. At that time one million signatures were collected to keep abortion legal, as it was under Communism.

Right now, abortion is legally accessible under three conditions: when the pregnancy is the result of rape, when the woman’s life or health is in grave danger, and when fetus development faces serious medical risks.

The woman cannot be punished under the current law, though the doctor and undefined “helpers” can face up to two years in prison. But this was almost never applied — here were some fifteen cases against doctors in the entire twenty-three years of the law’s existence.

Now almost everything could change. First and most importantly, women can become objects of investigation, surveillance, and also punishment whenever their confirmed pregnancy does not lead to birth.

Therefore a simple miscarriage can be subjected to institutional scrutiny. This means that the woman loses all her constitutional freedoms and rights, not to mention her dignity.

These are unconstitutional interventions, but since our constitutional court has been blocked since last fall, and is still paralyzed by the PiS machinations to keep it inactive, nobody will be able to stop the parliament if they really decide to pass this law.

There are different versions of the law circulating at this moment, and although one particular version has been submitted to parliament, we do not know which one exactly. This is also unprecedented; we’ve had bad law proposals in the past, but their authors and supporters at least had the decency to reveal what they prepared to the population.

Now even the legal expert, university professor, and human rights defender Monika Platek, who wrote a legal analysis of the new project, states in her preamble that although she addressed a particular part of the new law published by the Ordo Iuris, she cannot be certain whether this is the one being considered. Therefore she refers to other ones in cases when they differ.

The new law proposal suggests three months to five years of prison for any woman and/or doctor performing an abortion. It criminalizes any form of interference with the fetus’s life — therefore medical treatment for patients with cancer, for example, should be excluded.

Actually — terminal cancer should be a legal basis for termination of pregnancy anyways — it is hard to imagine women willing to give birth in a situation when their life expectancy is really short, although these cases also happen and should be respected as valid life choices.

The new law criminalizes abortions in the case of pregnancy that is the result of rape. Arkadiusz Czartoryski, a PiS MP, said that during World War II women were raped and “gave birth to many good Poles. Why should that be changed now?”

Polish law also has a statutory rape clause, which classifies sexual activity with anyone under fifteen as rape. But there will be no exception for them; as one parliamentarian said, even eleven-year-old girls should give birth since “there will be many people who will want the child.”

It also bans abortion in case of terminal diseases and deformations of the fetus. In cases where the woman must carry a dead fetus or birth a terminally ill infant, she will have to continue the pregnancy.