Warsaw saw several thousand people parade this Wednesday, June 14. Their motto? The abolition of the anti-abortion law, passed in 2021 and which, according to them, would have caused the death of several pregnant women, the last of which in May. Polish abortion law is one of the most restrictive in Europe.
Dorota Lalik, 33, died on May 24 in a hospital in Nowy Targ, southern Poland. She had been admitted there three days earlier when her water had just broken. She died of sepsis caused by the death in her womb of her 20-week-old fetus, according to a statement from her family.
“The nurses told her to lay her legs over her head to collect the waters,” Dorota Lalik’s husband told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. “No one suggested inducing a miscarriage to save Dorota, since the baby’s chances of survival were slim,” added Marcin Lalik.
The anti-abortion law theoretically allows doctors to perform an abortion if the woman’s life is in danger, but in practice it is so restrictive that doctors are afraid to do so. “They cause the death of young women in Poland, young mothers, because they are afraid of the consequences or have a particular vision of the world,” Julia Cieslak, a 40-year-old protester, told AFP. it read: “Stop killing us!” »
Similar protests took place in around 50 towns and villages across Poland. “Everything is political when you are a woman in Poland,” lamented another protester, New Left MP Katarzyna Kotula. “Especially if you’re a pregnant woman,” she added. “Due to political decisions, women are dying in Polish hospitals. »
In March, a Polish activist was sentenced by a Warsaw court to community service for helping with an abortion, an unprecedented case in Poland. According to a poll conducted in early March, 83.7% of Poles are in favor of liberalizing abortion law. Only 11.5% of respondents would like to maintain the current legal status.
Poland, a country with a Catholic tradition, already had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe when the Constitutional Court last year sided with the populist-nationalist government by declaring the “unconstitutional” abortions for fetal malformation.