Polish women go public in protest at restrictive abortion regime

Poland’s battle over abortion has flared up again over claims a public prosecutor ordered a house septic tank drained to confirm that a woman miscarried – and didn’t have an illegal abortion.

A Polish woman identified only as Ola was 18 weeks pregnant last year when she was hospitalised feeling unwell. Prescribed medication and sent home again, Ola said she miscarried in her home toilet and was rushed back to hospital for emergency surgery. According to Polish women’s magazine Wysokie Obcasy, police showed up at her hospital bed, having been tipped off about the woman’s miscarriage.

They accompanied her home and, according to the magazine, a local prosecutor ordered that a specialist team drain the house sewage system in search of the foetus – and with it possible evidence that the woman had broken Poland’s criminal code.

“I did not commit any crime. It was a miscarriage, a tragedy for me,” said Ola to the magazine. “At the request of the prosecutor, I was treated like trash.”

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In 2021 Poland legislated to restrict a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, permitting it only in cases of rape or incest or if there is a threat to her life or health.

The two years since have seen at least five cases of pregnant women dying from complications where, according to their families, medical teams hesitated to intervene for fear of breaking the law.

Ola told Wysokie Obcasy magazine she decided to go public with her experience last year in solidarity with another woman, identified as Joanna, who reported traumatic experiences at the hands of police in Krakow last April.

After being told her pregnancy posed a risk to her health, she took abortion pills she ordered online and then called her doctor saying she was contemplating suicide.

“The word ‘abortion’ sent in motion a kind of manhunt,” said Joanna to broadcaster TVN this week.

Within minutes a police car and ambulance appeared outside her home and she was whisked to Krakow military hospital. There she was surrounded by medical staff and female police officers – and ordered to strip.

“I undressed, I didn’t take off my underpants because I was still bleeding, and it was too humiliating and degrading for me,” said Joanna, who says she was ordered to do squats and cough.

Though she insisted she acted alone, police seized her phone and laptop in search of evidence that she was assisted in buying the abortion pills – a crime under Polish law.

Last March a Polish abortion activist was jailed for sending abortion pills to a woman whose husband refused to allow her travel abroad for a termination.

Poland’s health ministry said police officers had rushed to Joanna’s home “not due to abortion or the use of an abortion pill, but due to a threat to the patient’s life”.

Ahead of national elections in October, opposition politicians have organised mass rallies to protest against an abortion regime some have compared to Margaret Atwood’s fictional dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale.

“Is this still Poland,” asked leftist politician Katarzyna Kotula, “or already Gilead?”