“Never again”: in Poland, the death of a pregnant woman revives the pro-abortion mobilization

Published on : 11/05/2021 – 19:04

“The doctors waited for the fetus to die. The fetus is dead, the patient is dead. Septic shock.” Friday, October 29, these few chilling lines are posted on Twitter by Jolanta Budzowska, specialist in medical errors and lawyer for the Izabela family. She thus made public the death a month earlier, on September 22, of this woman then 22 weeks pregnant.

A press release sent by Jolanta Budzowska to our editorial staff details the circumstances of the tragedy. Izabela had gone to Pszczyna hospital in Silesia after a serious complication and severe inflammation. Doctors waited for a natural miscarriage to occur. During hospitalization, the fetus died, but the patient did not survive: she died of infectious shock. According to the family lawyer, the doctors decided not to perform an abortion – even though they confirmed that the fetus had deformities – for fear “of being held responsible for an illegal abortion”.

In messages sent to his family and loved ones, Izabela had described his symptoms and said he feared a septic infection and death. She also writes that the doctors ask her to wait until the fetal heart stops beating.

Tightening of the anti-abortion law

On social networks, with the hashtag #AniJednejWiecej (“Never again”), Poles relayed Izabela’s latest messages, made public by her relatives, images of candles, and photos of rallies in her memory.

With this slogan, the activists also intend to give new impetus to the mobilization in favor of the right to abortion in Poland. At the beginning of January, the Polish government ratified a decision of the Constitutional Court of October 22, 2020 leading to the almost total ban on abortion in the country.

This decision prohibits the voluntary termination of pregnancy in the event of a serious malformation of the fetus, on the pretext that it would be “incompatible” with the Constitution. As a result, abortion is now only authorized in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger.

Threat of prison for doctors in case of premature abortion

In Izabela’s case, it was this new legislation that prompted doctors not to perform an abortion, according to family lawyer Jolanta Budzowska:

After the hardening of the anti-abortion law in Poland following the verdict of the Constitutional Court, there was only one premise that could work in this case: a threat to the health or the life of the mother. However, this provision is very difficult to apply in practice for physicians. They do not know if they will correctly decide whether this real danger exists. If they perform an abortion too early and the prosecutor then finds that there was no danger, they risk a prison sentence of up to three years.

Concluding her message, Jolanta Budzowska hopes that Izabela’s case “will touch hearts and make everyone aware that the bad laws in force in Poland must be changed”.

The management of Pszczyna hospital defended itself, ensuring that the doctors did everything in their power to save the patient and the fetus.

“Izabela is not the first victim, and unfortunately she will not be the last”

For Antonina Lewandoska, activist in the Federation of Women and Family Planning (Federa), the new legislation is in question, and it will cause other victims:

The general political atmosphere, and the rhetoric of the ruling party, makes healthcare professionals terrified of doing their jobs and doctors prefer not to perform an abortion until they are sure. absolute that the life of the woman is threatened, or that her health is threatened. The law is currently influenced by ultra-conservative fundamentalist Catholics, and that’s a huge problem.

Regarding the case of Izabela, I believe that under the previous law it would have been much easier and much more natural for the doctors not to be afraid, and they would have performed the abortion. Izabela is the first victim [de la nouvelle législation anti-avortement, NDLR] that we have heard about, officially, with a name, with a cause of death, but our team is sure that she is not the first victim, and that she will unfortunately not be the last.

We don’t know how to change the law, but we need to create attention to it. We have a helpline for people who need an abortion and who need legal, psychological, medical assistance, and we provide abortion counseling in each case. Since the start of the year, we have responded to 8,142 calls and over 1,000 emails to provide advice. This is three times more than before the decision.

In Poland, informal abortion support networks have multiplied. The organization Abortion Without Borders, which brings together six Polish and international NGOs, helped nearly 34,000 women to abort since October 2020, medically using pills, or abroad. By way of comparison, only 300 legal cases of abortion have been recorded in Poland over the past year.

The anti-abortion law could tighten even further. The Polish Parliament is preparing to consider a citizens’ initiative bill, deposited by fundamentalist Catholic organizations. He wants to make abortion punishable from five to twenty-five years in prison, for mothers and doctors.