Personal Experience
My name is Maya, I am 27 years old, and a year ago I discovered that my baby had a severe malformation. Giving birth would have meant exposing him to a life of suffering and pain, and also putting myself at risk of potential complications during the pregnancy. It wasn’t easy for me to make a firm decision; I was convinced that abortion was the right thing to do only after the third month of pregnancy, a problematic pregnancy that caused me constant pain and anguish. One day, feeling feverish, I went to the hospital and explained that I could no longer bear the situation. I explained that I wanted to terminate the pregnancy because it had become unbearable, and I feared for my life. Unfortunately, no doctor listened to me; they did not deem it necessary to remove the fetus, even though I was in pain. One doctor specifically told me he would not end the baby’s life as long as its heart was still beating. That same day, I wrote to my mother, worried, knowing that perhaps what I was writing would be my last message to her, but deep down, I hoped I was wrong. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the case. I died from septicemia in the very hospital that should have saved my life, but instead, it sacrificed two lives in the name of ideologies selfishly imposed.
This story is powerful, and the data that follows shows that it is far from alone…
Poland is the country where access to abortion is among the most restricted in Europe. The law on family planning, the protection of the human fetus, and the conditions for the admissibility of pregnancy termination, approved by the Polish Parliament on January 7, 1993, established that women could have an abortion in cases of rape, fetal malformation, or danger to the pregnant woman’s life. However, on January 27, 2021, the Polish Constitutional Court officially declared fetal malformation an unconstitutional reason for abortion, reducing the number of legal cases to just two. Due to the numerous restrictions, many women who do not wish to carry their pregnancy to term and who necessarily need to undergo surgical fetal removal travel abroad. Medical abortion, on the other hand, is currently carried out at AboTak, the first abortion center in Poland, opened on March 8 in downtown Warsaw by the NGO Aborcyjny Dream Team. The purpose of the clinic is to reduce illegal abortions, which have approximately halved following the enforcement of the restrictive law. The center’s activists assist women through the process of safely terminating the pregnancy, also providing emotional and bureaucratic support in cases where surgical abortion is required. There have been protests from more conservative citizens: on the day of the clinic’s opening, red paint was thrown at a woman trying to enter the facility. Furthermore, demonstrators who have been taking to the streets since October 2020 to protest against the abortion restrictions are often subjected to violent aggression by the authorities.The only hope for a concrete resolution to the issue lies in the possible victory of progressive Rafał Trzaskowski, mayor of Warsaw and presidential candidate for the Civic Coalition in the May elections. However, even in this case, the issue would not be easily resolved, as there is no solid and organized majority in the Polish parliament in favor of liberalizing abortion. Therefore, it is highly likely that the restrictions will remain unchanged.