Anniversary of the ban on abortion
At least 34,000 women in Poland wanted illegal abortion
The de facto ban on abortion in Poland is now one year old. Protests across the country are also planned for the anniversary.
© Tobias Schwarz / AFP
A year ago the Polish government introduced a ban on abortion. Organizations are sounding the alarm: At least 34,000 women had illegal abortions this year – the number of unreported cases is significantly higher.
It has been a year since the Polish Constitutional Court tightened the abortion law. In October 2020, the judges ruled: the abortion of severely malformed fetuses is unconstitutional. The already very restrictive law became a de facto ban on abortion. In the months that followed, hundreds of thousands demonstrated against Polish law around the world. Vain.
12 months after the highly controversial verdict, several women’s rights organizations are sounding the alarm. According to the NGO “Abortions without Borders” (AWB), which helps women to get safe abortion treatment, at least 34,000 women in Poland have requested an illegal abortion or had it carried out abroad, where the legal situation is more progressive.
According to AWB, however, this is probably only a fraction of the real number. Ewa Hirvonen from Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Vantaa, Finland worked out in a research paper that the number of unreported abortions in Poland is in the range of 80,000 to 200,000.
Another fraction of this is the proportion of legal abortions in Poland. Since the law was tightened, an abortion is only permitted if the pregnancy resulted from rape and / or incest, or if the mother’s health is in danger. This only affects about 2 percent of all pregnancies. According to the AFP news agency, there are fewer than 2000 legal abortions annually in Poland.
As AWB reports, 460 Polish women alone traveled to Great Britain this year for an abortion in the second trimester, i.e. between the 14th and 27th week of pregnancy. There, an abortion is generally allowed up to the 24th week of pregnancy and, under certain circumstances, still possible afterwards.
According to its own information, the organization was also able to help women travel to Germany, Spain or the Czech Republic to have an abortion. In addition, with the offshoot “Women help women”, AWB gave a total of 18,000 Polish women access to medication for abortion.
A report from Human Rights Watch this week, which was written in collaboration with 14 human rights organizations, paints a gloomy picture as well. “The Constitutional Court’s ruling does unpredictable harm, especially for those who are poor, rural or marginalized,” said Urszula Grycuk, international advocate for the Federation for women and family planning, in the report.
Mara Clarke, the founder of AWB, sees it similarly. Speaking to the British newspaper The Guardian, she said: “We are seeing more and more women with fetal abnormalities using our services since the law was tightened.”
She kept hearing that doctors downplay fetal abnormalities and the effects of these, or that in rare cases doctors even refuse to make such a diagnosis. This would make it much more difficult for Polish women to have an abortion legally performed.
Abortions have always been a hot topic in this arch-Catholic country. They were banned completely until 1932, after which the law was weakened and pregnancies as a result of rape or incest could be ended. The renewed tightening of the law in October 2020 triggered mass protests across the country. Demonstrations are also planned for the anniversary.
Sources:The Guardian, Abortion without borders, Women help women, Human Rights watch, Federation for women and family planning, Research work “Polish Abortion Tourism”, with material from AFP