With only 107 legal abortions in 2022 in Poland, the country’s de facto abortion ban continues to worry MEPs. As the Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s decision to further restrict abortion celebrates its second anniversary (see EUROPE 12588/9), the European Parliament’s Committees on Gender Equality (FEMM) and Civil Liberties (LIBE) held a public hearing on Thursday 17 November to understand the consequences.
Deaths and reduced quality of care
“We have at least six documented cases of women who died because of this barbaric law”, hammered Robert Biedroń (S&D, Polish), Chair of the FEMM Committee.
Polish doctors, who can be held criminally liable, are afraid to initiate any medical procedure that could amount to an abortion, including in cases where there is a danger of death. For example, Barbara Skrobol, who was present at the hearing, lost her sister-in-law to an infection related to the refusal to terminate her pregnancy.
A collateral effect of this situation, added Kamilla Ferenc, a lawyer with ERDF, a Polish sexual and reproductive rights organisation, is a deterioration in overall gynaecological standards, with fewer pre-natal examinations, and an increasing number of Polish women refusing to have children.
More recently, the Polish government has introduced a pregnancy register. If the law only penalises those who facilitate access to abortion, and not the women themselves, associations fear that this will create an additional stigma.
Rule of law
“The EU Council should start a procedure under Article 7”, said Mr Biedroń, supported by a majority of the audience. In their view, Poland should not receive any more EU funds as long as it does not fulfil its obligations regarding the Rule of law.
Meanwhile, Neil Datta, Secretary General of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, denounced “active attempts to silence opponents inside and outside of Poland through judicial harassment campaigns by the Polish government itself, but also by non-State actors that are aligned with this ultra-conservative agenda”.
Caroline Hickson, Regional Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, pointed out that activists are also subject to physical violence and threats.
European support
While treaty change would require lengthy discussions, speakers advocated including the right to safe abortion as part of the right to health. They also called for EU financial support for organisations fighting for access to abortion, but also for giving Polish women the possibility to have a free abortion in another Member State.
Finally, they discussed the issue of women fleeing Ukraine who have been raped and who, in Mr Biedroń’s words, “escape from one hell to another”.
The hearing also follows the visit of a Parliament delegation to Poland in early November.
Read the mission report: https://aeur.eu/f/44f (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)