[News] Poland: Abortion Witch Hunt Targets Women, Doctors

[Angel of Death]

(London) – Poland’s government is targeting people for alleged abortion-related activities, intensifying a climate of fear that heightens risks for women and girls, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch released a video highlighting how the government’s dubious use of its powers to chase down alleged abortion-related activity threatens people’s rights to privacy, autonomy, and health, amongst others.

Since a near-ban on legal abortion in 2020, Polish officials have increasingly opened investigations on questionable legal grounds against women and girls seeking medical care for miscarriages or after legal medication abortions, as well as against doctors. Polish law does not criminalize having an abortion but rather anyone who provides or assists someone in having an abortion outside of highly restricted grounds. The government is apparently attempting to find a basis for prosecuting family members, friends, and healthcare providers for illegally providing or assisting abortions.

“Polish authorities’ ruthless pursuit of people trying to get or provide basic health care can only be described as a witch hunt,” said Hillary Margolis, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government is misusing police and courts to advance its anti-rights agenda, taking its abusive policies into private homes, hospital rooms, and doctors’ offices.”

In interviews with Human Rights Watch, doctors, lawyers, and a woman who had a legal medication abortion described sweeping and speculative investigations, and overbroad searches. Criminalizing those who provide or assist an abortion unjustifiably interferes with the right to health, leading to negative health outcomes and potential persecution of those seeking abortion.

Additionally, since January 2021, at least six women are known to have died after doctors did not terminate their pregnancies despite complications that posed a danger to their health or lives, which remain legal grounds for abortion in Poland. Prosecutors opened investigations into all six cases, five of which are ongoing. In the sixth, the prosecutor discontinued the proceedings without providing reasons for doing so.

Women and girls have been put under intense scrutiny for alleged abortion-related activity when they seek urgent health care. Joanna, a 32-year-old woman, said that the police demanded to strip search her in April after she had a self-administered medication abortion, which is legal.

“They told me to take off my clothes, do squats, and cough,” Joanna said. “I was just standing in front of them, I didn’t take my underwear off…. I tried to take a step back but there was only a wall behind me. I felt I wasn’t a human being anymore.”

The lawyer representing Joanna and others subject to invasive searches and interrogation said that such “fishing expeditions” do not have sufficient legal basis. “This is just searching for searching’s sake,” the lawyer said. “It’s not legitimate because the investigation must not be started without grounds for suspicion…. Only for abortion is it done this way.” These actions also constitute degrading treatment in violation of international human rights law, Human Rights Watch said.

Cases that Human Rights Watch documented offer evidence that Polish law enforcement authorities have increased their pursuit of women, girls, and healthcare providers since the politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal issued a decision in October 2020 that virtually eliminated legal abortion in Poland. The decision, which entered into force on January 27, 2021, removed one of only three grounds on which an abortion could be obtained.

Evidence consistently demonstrates that laws criminalizing or restricting access to abortion do not eliminate it, but rather drive people to seek abortion through means that may put their mental and physical health at risk and diminish their autonomy and dignity.

Since the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) came to power in 2015, Poland’s government has carried out a sustained attack on sexual and reproductive health rights, particularly access to abortion. The ruling party brought the abortion case to the Constitutional Tribunal after parliament voted not to adopt legislation effectively banning legal abortion.

The authorities’ crackdown on women’s rights is a symptom of their broader capture of the justice system and dismantling of democratic checks and balances. Under Law and Justice, the government has systematically eroded the rule of law by undermining the independence of the judiciary and establishing effective control over the Constitutional Tribunal, among other institutions. It has sought to silence independent civil society groups, activists, and those who protest against its policies, including through the police and courts.

Abortion rights defenders have also come under fire. In March 2023, a Warsaw court convicted Justyna Wydrzyńska, co-founder of the activist group Abortion Dream Team, of helping a woman to procure medication abortion pills. Wydrzyńska, who was sentenced to eight months of community service, is appealing the conviction.

Poland’s government should urgently decriminalize abortion and provision of or assistance in procuring an abortion or abortion-related care, and ensure safe and legal access. The government and authorities should immediately stop questionable investigations and prosecutions related to abortion and ensure that women and girls can access necessary reproductive health care in a dignified and confidential manner, and that healthcare practitioners can provide such care without fear of prosecution.

The authorities should also cease attacks on women’s and reproductive rights defenders. Authorities’ actions – and their use of undemocratic means to pursue their aims – raise serious concerns over breaches of the European Union’s founding values and Poland’s international human rights obligations, Human Rights Watch said.

“By going after women and girls who need medical care – and doctors who provide it – Polish authorities are using their powers to terrorize people instead of to protect basic rights,” Margolis said. “As the government ramps up its targeting and harassment of people allegedly linked to abortion, anyone can fall prey to these attempts and have their privacy, dignity, and right to health violated.”

Additional Information on Increased Targeting of Alleged Abortion-Related Activity

The October 2020 Constitutional Tribunal decision stated that abortion on grounds of “high probability of severe and irreversible fetal impairment or incurable illness that threatens the fetus’ life” is unconstitutional, removing one of few, and the most accessible, legal basis for abortion under Poland’s highly restrictive law. Previously, over 90 percent of the approximately 1,000 legal abortions annually in Poland were on these grounds.

Polish law now permits abortion only to safeguard the life or health of the woman or where a pregnancy results from rape or incest. However, in practice multiple barriers severely limit access to care in such cases, as the deaths of pregnant women refused terminations demonstrate.

Link: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/14/poland-abortion-witch-hunt-targets-women-doctors