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                 Abortion in Poland: Women Made to Suffer in god's Backyard

Source: "OPEN FILE" 
- a publication of the International Planned Parenthood Federation
(IPPF) March/April 1997 (1997/2). E-mail: ippf...@ippf.attmail.com ; 
http://www.oneworld.org/ippf/ 

Supplied by Australian Reproductive Health Alliance (ARHA)
E-mail: ar...@netinfo.com.au ; http://users.netinfo.com.au/arha/ 

"Polish Women Ignorant of Abortion Rights" 


An in-depth appraisal of Poland's legal and illegal abortion practices, their
effects and consequences, by Dr Wanda Nowicka, executive director of the
Warsaw-based Federation for Women and Family Planning, reveals that Polish
women undergo about 40,000-50,000 abortions a year. Writing in Entre Nous,
WHO's European family planning magazine, she outlines Poland's 1993 law
(commonly known as the anti-abortion law) on family planning, human embryo
protection and the conditions surrounding legal abortion. Doctors who perform
illegal abortions risk up to two years in jail. Under the law, abortions must
be carried out in public hospitals. 

She says that her Federation had discovered that underground abortion and
abortion tourism were highly developed. The average price for a so-called
underground abortion was US$400, compared with the average monthly salary of
around $300. Some doctors and doctors' co-operatives charged $600-$800 and in
Warsaw, prices were even higher. 

"Underground abortions? They flourish - and not by old women using crochet
hooks and herbal brews." 

Dr Nowicka says that many women cross Poland's eastern and southern borders
to Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 

In Kaliningrad in Russia, an abortion costs $200, but poor sanitary
conditions often result in women suffering medical complications. Some women
travelled to the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Austria. 

A family planning clinic in Berlin reported that about 15 Polish women
visited weekly and paid between $400 and $1,300 for abortions. An unnamed
agency had organized about 1,500 foreign abortion trips within two years.
There were frequent cases of women who had arrived at hospitals to "finish
off" a backstreet abortion, which often resulted in infection and
miscarriage. 

"Poland's anti-abortion law is much more restrictive in real life than on
paper as women who have the right to a legal abortion are often refused one,
even though they have all the necessary certificates," Dr Nowicka asserts.
She believes the reason is that the law allows for free interpretation of the
provisions regulating access to a legal abortion. Feudal regulations
governing hospitals allow hospital directors to make unilateral decisions
that pay no heed to doctors' opinions. The law's conscience clause gives an
individual doctor, not an entire hospital, the right to refuse to perform an
abortion, she says. 

"Doctors are afraid - not only of priests - but even of orderlies or nurses
who may inform on the doctor. Our federation has obtained information on many
cases in which the woman was not able to execute her right to abortion in a
hospital," Dr Nowicka writes. 

She lists reasons for women not lodging complaints to the Ministry of Health
- including that they want to forget the nightmare they have undergone in
trying to get an abortion - searching for a doctor, having medical
examinations that resulted in delays and which were then used as a pretext
for not performing the abortion because it had become too late. 

Such a pretext was illegal, she says, because the law did not state that an
abortion could not be performed under such circumstances. It was also illegal
because the law did not state that an abortion could not be performed after
the twelfth week of pregnancy.


"Women, however, do not know about this and it never occurs to them to make a
complaint. They are too frightened of being caught and prosecuted." She
quotes a Polish psychologist who claims that the anti-abortion law had been
responsible for the entrenching of attitudes towards sex as a source of guilt
and sin - compounded by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and public
discussions on abortion. He notes that sexuality is not treated as a source
of satisfaction and pleasure but of fear and danger.


Other psychologists and sexologists point out that many gynaecologists do not
recommend any contraceptives to women and advise women that contraceptives
are harmful. Others inform women about contraceptives only on request. 

Family planning, Dr Nowicka declares, is used by a small proportion of Polish
society and, unlike other countries, Poland does not collect data on
contraceptive prevalence. Government records, based on data obtained from
pharmacies, show that only 2.2% of women use the Pill. Obstacles limiting the
availability and usage of contraceptives in Poland include the small number
of organizations promoting family planning (mostly non-governmental
organizations with almost no government support to develop their services
adequately); practically non-existent information on family planning in such
institutions as health centres and schools; the unaffordable price of
contraceptives for many women. 

Many doctors do not promote contraceptives because they have insufficient
knowledge or are opposed to their use. She also points out that though the
1993 law required the Ministry of Education to introduce sex education in
school curricula, it was not preceded by a preparatory process. 

The majority of text books recommended by the ministry are based on the
Catholic Church's teaching on family planning. 

The level of knowledge on sexuality among the youth was poor. Apart from the
lack of basic knowledge, Maria Trawinska confirmed that many false beliefs
were cherished by young people. 




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(The effects of the 1993 anti-abortion law in Poland. Entre Nous, No 34-35,
13-15, December 1996, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Denmark) 

Entre Nous is produced in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian and
Russian. 

Contact: Nowicka, W., Dr. Executive Director, Federation for Women and Family
Planning, ul. Franciszkanska 18/20, 00-205 Warsaw, Poland.