Poland’s pro-life priorities

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Poland.

The conservative country is an outlier in the more liberal European Union. That’s especially true when it comes to laws protecting the unborn.

WORLD European correspondent Jenny Lind Schmitt reports now on how pro-life activists turned recent protests to their advantage.

AUDIO: [crowd noises]

JENNY LIND SCHMITT, CORRESPONDENT: In January, pro-abortion demonstrations in Poland made international headlines when new protections for unborn babies took effect. Three months earlier, the country’s constitutional court had ruled that allowing abortion in the case of fetal abnormalities was unconstitutional and undermined human dignity. The court took the case after a group of lawmakers petitioned for a ruling on the question.

The international press portrayed the court’s decision as overreach by the conservative government. But in reality, Poland has had some of Europe’s most pro-life laws for years.

AUDIO: [music from communist Poland]

Under Poland’s era of communist rule, leaders encouraged abortion as a form of birth control. When Poles threw communists out of power in the 1990s, pro-life activists in the majority Catholic country worked to change that attitude. In 1993, a conservative government passed a law banning abortion.

Since then, Poland has allowed abortion in only three circumstances: rape or incest, when the mother’s life is at risk, or when a doctor has diagnosed fetal abnormalities.

Filip Mazurczak is a journalist and historian pursuing his doctorate at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

MAZURCZAK: Up until now the overwhelming majority of legal abortions in Poland—well over 90 percent—were related to this fetal abnormality exception. 

The law had never explicitly defined fetal abnormality. In recent years, a growing number of doctors used the fetal abnormality exception to perform abortions, sometimes in cases when the abnormality was not at all fatal. But public perception after the ruling was that the government was forcing women to continue difficult pregnancies.

MAZURCZAK: This court ruling would have been much much less controversial if it only would have said that abortion in the case of Down syndrome is illegal. Then the protest would be tiny. The thing that really irked a lot of people was the ban of abortion in the case of so called fatal lethal flaws. Different genetic illnesses in which the chances a child will survive are very slim. Because people were saying, the law can’t force people to be heroes, to be martyrs, to be saints. They said it’s cruel to force women to witness the death of their own child.

In response, the government pledged to step up support of perinatal hospice centers. These provide medical and psychological care to parents when their baby has received an in utero diagnosis of terminal illness. Poland is already a leader in the area of perinatal hospice with four times the number of care centers than Germany, a country with twice its population. But advocates have called for an expansion. Poland’s minister of family and social policy recently said the government wants centers in each of the nation’s 16 provinces.

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Another issue highlighted by the court ruling is the need to provide support for disabled persons already in society. Magdalena Guziak-Nowak is with the Polish Association of Human Life Defenders. The pro-life organization also advocates for improved support for the disabled and their families.

GUZIAK-NOWAK: [woman speaking Polish]

JOHNSON, TRANSLATOR: People with disabilities receive financial support from the state, but it is very little and insufficient. Many parents cannot afford to buy better rehabilitation equipment for their children, go on private visits to the doctor, buy specialized dietary supplements, and so on. Five percent of seriously ill children live in extreme poverty.

The monthly government nursing allowance is $55 dollars, when the actual average cost of care for a sick child is $13-00 dollars. And government assistance ends when the child turns 18. Currently, a parent who cares for a disabled child receiving funds from the government is not legally allowed to work, compounding financial hardship.

JOHNSON: There is a lot of talk about removing architectural barriers, about inclusive education, and about equal opportunities in the labor market for people with disabilities. It is important. However, without financial support that enables treatment and rehabilitation, sick people will never be able to enter any labor market. 

Ninety-two percent of Poles favor increasing state aid for disabled persons. The government has been sluggish to update disability laws, but the recent abortion debate has pulled the issue back to the forefront.

Mazurczak says that while the court’s decision is a win for the pro-life community, he’s encouraged to see organizations continuing their commitment to public education. The Our Children Foundation began a massive publicity campaign soon after the ruling.

MAZURCZAK: These billboards are everywhere. First they showed a womb in the shape of a heart, and showing a fetus in it. And so it’s just a positive message. Instead of showing aborted fetuses, it’s a positive message. The same billboards have also had the word ‘Life’ written in different languages. 

Guziak-Nowak is grateful for the prayers for Poland from all over the world during the debate. She says pro-life law needs to protect children, but also their mothers.

JOHNSON: The child deserves to be treated with the greatest delicacy, and if he is sick, to see him as a patient and not a problem, to accept and love him. But good law is not only needed to protect children. We need good laws to protect women, mothers. They deserve support, loving care, and the highest medical standards.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt.

(Czarek Sokolowski/Associated Press) In this Wednesday Jan. 27, 2021 file photo, people protest against new anti-abortion laws, near the ruling Law and Justice party headquarters in Warsaw, Poland.

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