Hospitals will receive guidelines to improve effective access to abortion, developed by Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna in cooperation with Justice Minister Adam Bodnar.
Jakub Gołąb, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, told PAP that the Minister of Health, in cooperation with the Minister of Justice, will develop and provide hospitals with detailed information on the applicable legal provisions regarding access to termination of pregnancy by the end of August, that is, by Friday.
The guidelines will be a tool that will enable medical institutions to adapt the legal provisions in this area in an appropriate manner and thus improve the effective availability of the termination of pregnancy procedure. This tool aims to provide equal and fair treatment to women who wish to exercise their rights in this area.
– Gołąb noted.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday that there will be no majority in the current parliament for “legal abortion in the full sense of the word.” He announced, among other things, that in this case “there will be a completely different practice in the prosecutor’s office and in Polish hospitals.”
Guidelines for prosecutors
In early August, Attorney General Adam Bodnar issued guidelines for prosecutors on how to handle cases involving refusal to terminate a pregnancy and medical abortion.
On July 12, the Sejm rejected the draft amendment to the Criminal Code, which was supposed to decriminalize assisted abortion and termination of pregnancy with the consent of the pregnant woman up to the twelfth week of pregnancy. Several votes were needed to adopt the amendment, including MPs from the ruling coalition.
According to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Poland’s abortion laws violate women’s rights. This is the result of an investigation into Poland’s abortion laws, launched in 2021. The Committee noted that Polish law is so restrictive that some doctors, fearing legal liability, do not perform abortions even in situations where the law permits it. endangering the woman’s life.
In 2023, 423 abortions were performed in hospitals; in 2022 – 161; in 2021 – 107, in 2020 – 1,076, in 2019 – 1,110.
In October 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled that the principle allowing abortion was unconstitutional due to the high risk of serious and irreversible fetal impairment. The Constitutional Court’s ruling entered into force on 27 January 2021, and the provision allowing abortion on the grounds of this condition ceased to be valid. Currently, abortion is possible in two cases: when the pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health, or when it is the result of a prohibited act (e.g. rape or incest).
mly/PAP
Source: wPolityce