Thousands protest against Poland’s restrictive abortion laws after pregnant woman dies in hospital

Thousands of women joined protests around Poland against restrictive abortion laws on Wednesday evening after the death of a pregnant woman in a maternity hospital.

With echoes of the fate of Savita Halappanavar, 33-year-old Dorota Lalik was five months pregnant when her waters broke on May 21st. She was hospitalised in Nowy Targ, south of Krakow, but died three days later from septic shock.

“No one mentioned that you could induce a miscarriage and save Dorota, given the chances of the child surviving were slim,” her husband, Marcin Lalik, told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.

He said the hospital had never said his wife’s life was in danger and seemed more anxious to save the foetus.

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“The nurses told her to lie down with legs above her head because they said it would let the waters return,” he said.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into Ms Lalik’s death, which is the fifth known case of a pregnant woman dying from complications since Poland tightened its already restrictive abortion laws to rule out terminations, even in cases of foetal abnormalities.

The government legislated in 2021 to restrict a woman’s right to abortion, only permitting it in cases of rape or incest or if there is a threat to their life or health.

[ Hundreds of thousands march against rightwing populist government in Poland ]

The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) insists that poor medical decisions are responsible for the women’s deaths and that the hospital violated Ms Lalik’s right to a legal abortion.

“A termination is never an easy decision but sometimes it is a necessity and Polish law here is clear,” said Poland’s prime minister and PiS leader Mateusz Morawiecki. “The life and health of women is the most important thing.”

While he warned against “politicising” the case, his government’s abortion legislation came on foot of a 2020 ruling by Poland’s constitutional court. Critics say this ruling was highly political given the court is filled with judges loyal to the government.

Women’s health campaigners argue that Poland’s new abortion regime has had a chilling effect, with doctors and clinics preferring not to take chances and, if possible, avoid offering abortions.

On Wednesday, women chanting “stop killing us” marched on the health ministry in Warsaw, many holding posters reading “we want doctors, not missionaries”.

Speaking at the protest rally, leftist opposition MP Katarzyna Kotula said that “everything is political when you are a woman in Poland... particularly, unfortunately, a woman’s pregnancy”.

A year after a similar death of a pregnant woman from septic shock, many at the demonstration said they feared for their future if Poland’s national conservative government is re-elected in October.

“Dorota was the same age as me and just thinking about getting pregnant makes me afraid,” said Justyna (33). “At the moment in Poland as a woman I don’t feel safe.”

[ 'Stop killing us': abortion rights protesters march in Poland ]

Another protester, 26-year-old Sara, said Polish women are “fighting for our basic human rights”.

Even after years of polarising political debate, abortion is particularly divisive in Poland, where the liberal communist-era approach to abortion was already tightened up in a 1993 reform.

Last year 43 per cent of respondents in an opinion poll said they favoured rolling back the 2021 reforms.

However, PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynskiinsists that pregnancies should run to term “even when the child will inevitably die, when it is severely deformed... so the child can be christened, buried and given a name”.

Asked this week about the case of Ms Lalik, Mr Kaczynski described the concerns of pregnant women in Poland as an “imaginary reality” created by a “great deception” of media propaganda.