POLAND:The Polish police operation that interrupted an 'unofficial' termination is part of a wider investigation, writes Derek Scally
The abortion was an ordeal, from its start in a Warsaw cellar to its finish in hospital several panicked hours later.
At the centre of it all, a nameless Irish woman.
On Wednesday she arrived at a house in the Bemowo district of Warsaw, just one of at least 80,000 faceless women who undergo an "unofficial" abortion in Poland each year.
But instead of a discreet end to her pregnancy, believed to have cost €1,000, the procedure came to an abrupt halt when officers from Poland's anti-corruption bureau (CBA) burst into the cellar.
The woman and an Irish man accompanying her were detained, along with Dr Piotr Orlicz, an anaesthesiologist.
The woman was later brought to hospital, where the abortion was completed. Dr Orlicz was also taken to hospital after the raid, complaining of heart problems, and he has yet to be questioned.
Irish Embassy officials were called and visited the woman, who is believed not to be suffering any side-effects from the experience. This morning, she and her companion are back in Ireland.
For the woman, it appears to have been a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Police carried out the raid in search of evidence to support charges of corruption and forging medical documents against Dr Orlicz. He has been dragged into a corruption investigation surrounding one of his colleagues at Warsaw's prestigious Hospital of the Ministry of Interior Affairs.
Dr Miroslaw Garlicki, a well-known cardiac surgeon, was charged with accepting bribes and killing one of his patients last February. According to investigators, Dr Garlicki performed a heart transplant last year and demanded money from the patient's family after surgery.
When they couldn't pay, it is alleged that he ordered the patient to be taken off a life-support machine. The patient subsequently died.
The case has thrown light once again on Poland's thriving backstreet abortion business. Officials in Dublin and Warsaw have expressed amazement that the woman chose to have an abortion in a country with abortion restrictions similar to those in Ireland.
Polish law permits abortions only where there is a proven medical risk to the life or health of the woman. In practice, though, few doctors are prepared to sign a consent form even when there are sufficient medical grounds, and only about 200 "official" abortions are carried out each year.
Women's groups say many of the same doctors will perform "unofficial" after-hours abortions for a €500 fee. "We have a well-developed abortion underground," said Wanda Nowicka of the Federation for Women in Warsaw. "Our estimates of unofficial abortions range from 80,000 to 200,000 annually."
The group was recently involved in the country's most high-profile abortion case to date.
In March, the European Court of Human Rights awarded €25,000 damages to a Polish woman who was refused an abortion and was left nearly blind after giving birth, a risk doctors were aware of during the pregnancy.
In April, the Polish government failed in its attempt to enshrine the country's restrictive abortion laws in the constitution.