New step toward criminalisation of abortion in Poland
By Cyril Smuga
On October 22, a special commission set up to study the proposed law on "the juridical protection of conceived children" voted 12-6 to recommend that the proposal be adopted as law.
This is the most reactionary version of the law — one that had been drafted by the National Christian Union (ZChN), a fundamentalist Catholic party. The text can now be submitted to a vote in the Polish parliament, the Diet, at any time.
It prescribes two year prison sentences for the person considered responsible for an abortion. That is, the doctor, or in the case of a self-induced abortion, the woman. The use of certain forms of contraception which intervene after the fertilisation of the egg, like the IUD or the RU-486 pill, which prevent the fertilised egg from establishing itself in the uterus, is considered as an abortion, and would therefore be subject to the same penalties.
The ban on abortion will be total, without any exceptions, even in cases when the woman's life is in danger, the fetus is deformed or the woman has become pregnant as a result of a rape. In order to remove any temptation, the proposed law prohibits prenatal exams.
It is generally estimated that there are between 180,000 and 600,000 abortions performed in Poland every year. The daily Warsaw paper Gazeta Wyborcza wrote that the passage of this law could result in the imprisonment of 60,000 people in the first year of its enactment, which would amount to a doubling of Poland's prison population! More seriously, the lumping together of abortion and certain contraceptive measures, would, according to the liberal weekly Polityka,lead to police gynaecological examinations in the tradition of the practices of Ceaucescu's sinister Securitate in Romania.
The Catholic fundamentalists are ready to see this law passed at any price. "Under cover of a democratic debate we will see this law all the way through passage by the Diet", declared one of its supporters in the halls of the Diet. They enjoy the support of the Prime Minister, Hanna Suchocka, who was the author of an earlier version of the law. Their opponents within the politico-parliamentary establishment seem on the other hand to be paralysed by the fear of seeing a new governmental crisis break out and even more by the possibility that this will lead to a renewal of mass mobilisation which, if successful, could rehabilitate collective action in the eyes of the masses.
It is therefore likely that in spite of the rejection by the majority of the population, as seen in numerous public opinion polls, of any penalisation of abortion, the law will be adopted by the parliament.
Only the pressure of foreign public opinion — to which the neo- liberals who govern Poland are sensitive — can avoid a sharp blow lish population and a big step forward towards the establishment of a religious state.
[From International Viewpoint.]