Human rights are one of the inviolable things that modern society strives to protect. But reproductive rights, which include the right to termination of pregnancy, the right to birth control, and the right of access to quality reproductive health care, are still a highly contentious issue. These problems are related to culture, religion, to questions that go far back in history, but negatively affect women right now.
THE POLISH APPROACH
Poland and its approach to women’s reproductive rights is one of such examples. Just recently, in November, the public was shaken by another news story related to reproductive rights: 30-year-old Izabella died of septic shock after her water broke. Research showed numerous abnormalities in the fetus, but because of how strict the requirements for performing abortions are in Poland, doctors did not perform it, but waited until the embryo died to perform a Cesarean. It is hard to imagine this in 2021, in a European country, it is more reminiscent of some barbaric approach than high-tech medicine. Of course, after this tragic event, the Polish government reminded doctors that abortions are legal in some situations. But the number of possible legal options for terminating a pregnancy is negligible: abortion is allowed only in cases of rape or incest or when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Earlier, these reasons also included fetal malformations, however, the Constitutional Court of Poland on October 22 of 2020 recognized this ground as illegal.
After this decision of the Constitutional Court of Poland, independent human rights experts emphasized that Poland violated its international human rights obligations sacrificing women’s human right to safe services for termination of pregnancy on account of the protection of the right to life of the unborn.
PITFALLS OF THE SYSTEM
Although the main idea of these laws is to protect the right to life, this carries a huge number of pitfalls. First of all, if a woman has any reasons for terminating a pregnancy that do not fall under the law, she will still look for loopholes in order to do that. In the best-case scenario, it will be the so-called ‘abortion tourism’, which has already been used by many women from Poland. Abortion Without Borders, a group that help women obtain abortion, says that it assisted to 34,000 people in Poland since the ban was imposed. In the worst case, women may turn to so-called ‘unsafe’ or ‘clandestine’ abortions without proper medical assistance, which obviously lead to an increase in maternal mortality.
Obviously the issue of the right to abortion and the right to life raises a dilemma in society, which is justified by history, ethics, religion, and culture. However, in the case of preventive measures, which deal with very strict restrictions on the right to abortion, it is clear that they will not end in this way, but only increase the number of accidents that can happen to women.
SOURCES
in-text sources
PA images;
AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski
Wojtek Radwanski/AFP
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