Abortion still under control in Poland

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I don't know why people always get their panties all up a bunch about abortion - yeah it's sad but it's a necessary evil nonetheless. I didn't see anything about an abortion when the woman was raped and doesn't want to keep it in that website that OP posted - so I'm assuming you can't get an abortion either if a woman is raped or if you are unable to raise children. Sometimes an abortion is the lesser of two evils if you know you can't raise a child and that child's life will be awful or the father will never be there. Personally, if I were a woman in Poland and got pregnant because I was raped or very poor, I'd save everything I could to get an abortion in another country.


It's homing pigeons actually, or at least that's what we had.

That's what Nowacka said- that this ban will hit poor women the most since wealthier women will just go abroad. If you don't have a penny you'll be f*****.

I'm not panicking just yet but the vision of the future is getting scary.
For PiS supporters it may be worth remembering that they tried it last time and Maria Kaczynska herself organised a meeting in support of the current law.

Yeah pretty much. Only other options would be to try to get the abortion pill illegally - and I don't think that works after some period of time. I don't know - people need to be more cognizant about the child's future and not just keep having a bunch of unprotected sex like rabbits.

The current law allows 3 situations in which abortion is legal:
-the pregnancy is the result of illegal act (usually rape)
-the fetus is very sick
-the woman health and life is in danger.
I don't think anyone can call it too lenient.
Before PiS came to power the morning after pill was available without prescription but now you have to go to a doctor again. The abortion under the new law could be terminated only if the mather's life is in danger however I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to block that as well. And the women should be prosecuted and charged for up to 5 years in prison

I don't see it this way after all it is nature that affect women more than men in this and a society balance it with a certain privileges being granted to women. Haven't seem them protesting much over that.


What being poor has to do with getting pregnant?


Really? So, according to your logic I should opt for morons that cannot keep up with argument or are contaminating people with their immoral standing should be eliminated because they endanger society with their stupid shyete? The lesser evil attitude is a slippery slope!


Someone has a medical problem methinks. :D


Sure, and she cares so much about poor women that it kinda hits you in the face. (sarcasm)


What is that? Are you planning to sleep around without protection?


It was as they call it a comprise as not everyone in the society adhere to the same moral standard. Hence the reason I support it.


Which in the way was against the law of the country. I would expect that those responsible should be persecuted for introducing such a law that allowed for that to happen..

Sorry but I have no idea what you are on about here.


Certainly more than the Church in this situation. After all she for sure wouldn't have any problems with paying for a visit in a nice clinic somewhere outside of Poland.


I'm not planning on being raped but it would be nice to know that if I got pregnant in a result of rape I would have the possibility of abortion.

And since current law doesn't allow abortion in a case of 'sleeping around' I can only assume that it's your failed and disgusting attempt at being clever and funny.


It's not since they are not abortion pills.Their task is to slow down ovulation so there will be no conception. No conception=no abortion.

What do you mean? I'm talking about certain privileges that are granted to you by the society ( law) by the token of your gender.


Name one thing she has done for poor women that wouldn't benefit it her otherwise?


She is too old to have this kind of issues. Regardless she is doing OK partly because she was/is leading organization that is receiving grants from the international pharmaceutical company producing contraceptives and international non-governmental organization that is involved in the production and distribution of means for the performance of abortions. She is not an innocent bystander but has her hand in the cookie jar.


Nah, that was my adequate response to you being overtly dramatic and theatrical in your gloomy predictions. Now you are trying to lecture me on what is appropriate and what's not. Save it. I'm threating you as my equal in this debate if you cannot take it and you would rather be treated like a woman - you only need to ask me once.

No privileges make up for loosing control over one's body. And if you didn't notice for a long time we are more or less trying to make both genders equal.


I am a women and yet your equal. It's not a privilege you give me and can take away.
And yes,to me as a women the vision of the new law is scary. I'm young enough that I have still many years in which I may get pregnant. And guess what? I'm not happy with the possibility that I may have to give birth to my rapist child or to a kid that will only live few hours or months in terrible pain.

For you I may seem melodramatic but for you it's more or less just theoretical question. For me it can become very real issue every month.

But.... hand kissing! Womens' Day!


I doubt if he agrees....

I'm wondering why they're brining this up now unless the church doesn't have confidence in the longterm prospects of PiS staying in power and they want to push through as much of their agenda as they can while they can...

I disagree as it takes two to cause the headaches so to speak.
The headache being the need for an abortion pill.
I think it is LONG OVER DUE that men take on some responsibility and accountability to what causes the headache.
While billions of dollars have been spent on birth control for women very little has been spent on male contraceptive short of having vasectomies.
Women have been used as guinea pigs with birth control pills without knowing the side effects or long term use.
Many women with over prescribed amounts when the pill first came out became permanently sterile. Oops !
The IUD came out and was found to cause an increase in cancer. Oops !
I would suggest that if a Christian country was so concerned about women's bodies in the child bearing ages of 16 - 26 then they make available for sexually active men a affordable contraceptive pill to eliminate the need for an abortion pill.

This practice along with affordable birth control pills would still not cure the problem of uneducated irresponsible people however but it would be a start.


Those laws should be a given.
There are still many other circumstances that only the woman has to deal with which effects the rest of their lives that are not circumstances that the law makers have to deal with the rest of theirs.

There are way to many women and children suffering in this world because of government or religion dictators who both have caused God knows how much killing themselves.

The Church Authorities and Government Authorities don't seem to have any mortal holding them accountable for their sins.
Until they do they should be a little more understanding and forgiving of others.

Personally I am against total ban on abortion, the law should stays as it is now. But your reference to muslims is ridiculous. Muslims try to push upon us the caveman level approach to women and pretty much anything else. While the Euro left promotes suicidal eunuchism, which among other things, enable muslim savages to basically conquer Europe step by step. Being against both of these approaches is not "funny", it's a matter of friggin common sense. Just like one didn't have to be a commie to be against nazis. Or now one doesn't have to be a militaristic maniac to be against "1% of GDP on the military" impotent approach to defence that majority of EU follow. Common sense is what both muslims and EUnuchs are lacking.

Personally, I'm not for taking in thousands of Muslims or blindly following what the EU dictates. I also happen to disagree with tiny insecure "men" (who think that they are standing up for traditional Polish values or whatever ) trying to tell women what to do with their bodies, it's pathetic. Of course they're not exactly like Muslims but, come on, you have to see the similarity.

For sure, if there's one way to alienate your followers it's by taking away their human rights. My girlfriend is still blaming the government though, as if her religion has nothing to do with it.

But it is the government isn't it. A PIS government let the NeoCon clergy dictate to them. The clergy don't know any better but the government on the other hand should legislate.

From what I've read, the church has been trying to push it for a long time. If they didn't push, would PiS still suggest it? We can only speculate. However for the time being I prefer to blame the egg and not the chick.

What are you getting at?


It might have escaped your attention but you have been privileged by the society (both in law and in customs)all your life. Your definition of equality must be pretty strange or based on false assumptions if you really believe in that alleged drive to 'try' to make both genders equal.


If you stop raiding the wave of your feelings you wouldn't be taking it all in the wrong way.
You are my equal as a human being, as an individual you were caught trying to lecture me on what is and what is not appropriate in the given contexts. It has bespoken an attempt on patronizing me only because you didn't like my take on an overtly dramatic tone you have taken here.

That is you who obviously cant distinguish between pointing out facts or its logical consequences from lecturing and judging other people's views and expression in such a manner that belie equality.


That is not a very logical stance.. might or might not, who knows what tomorrow will bring? Could be a war or a car accident, are you constantly worrying about those too?


That has nothing to do with the issue debated.


No, it is not.
If I were to defend existing law on this issue I would say (as I already did) that its a nicely cut compromise between defense of sanctity of the human life and contemporary society which doesn't consist only from people bonded by the same ethics.

I think that it is a nicely balanced law despite its flaws.


Which proves that you are on of those brainless morons who should be kept in bondage for their own good.

Which for the very poor in Poland could be an impossibility.


If I've understood you correctly you support the current legislation which was passed in 1993 and think the abortion laws should stay as they are now? Under communism, abortion was allowed on social grounds, is this what you meant by your comment that not everyone in society adhered to the same moral standard?

If enough signatures are gathered and the new proposal becomes law, it is not going to stop abortion. After the 1993 legislation was passed and abortions were denied on social grounds, those finding themselves pregnant went underground and had their abortions illegally. This is not going to change if a new law is passed and will put womens' lives at risk.

Which will just lead to women doing it themselves, with all the dangers that follow. Evidently that's what the extreme Catholics prefer, a desperate woman dying of sepsis after trying to abort, rather than a cluster of cells being removed at a hospital.

Ran out of editing time, but to add to this, if abortion is denied on any grounds at all there will surely be an increase in the number of women seeking illegal abortions. Currently, those found performing them can be sentenced to 2 years in prison, which would increase to 5 years if this becomes law. If someone is prepared to ignore a possible 2 year prison sentence to perform an illegal abortion, what difference would increasing the term to 5 years make?

This new proposal is going to force women into desperate situations, and I would imagine there will also be an increase in the number of babies being given up for adoption too.


It doesn't bear thinking about tbh, and yes, women will end up that desperate.
This new proposal is a huge step backwards in my opinion.

That's about the size of it.


I'm defending that law because I think is a nice compromise and there is not need to push it just to make the point.


I don't know that and you don't know that. Anyway even if you were right that is not an argument you could use.


Yes, keep proving me right.


Bah, another blunder. Are you not tried of making them again and again?

I'm not arguing against your supporting it, that's your choice. I was just trying to clarify exactly what you meant.


If going by the past is anything to go by, it won't.
The change in the abortion law in 1956 was largely due to high mortality rates of women undergoing illegal abortions. This is why abortion was decriminalized back then.

Prior to that, the 1932 law applied, where abortion was granted as the result of a crime e.g rape, or the women's life was at risk.

As far as I know some of those statistic had been cooked.
Anyway I fail to see logic in the reason given for decriminalization of abortion. Who in his right mind would decriminalize a crime using as an argument number of criminals falling a victim to their own crime?

Unless someone believes it is not a crime at all in the first place. Meaning that alleged high mortality rate had been only used as an excuse to bring forward legislation closer to their ideologically biased views..

Ah, abortion. Always an emotive and polarizing topic. There will never be a consensus.

The claims cited on here advocating for abortion (rape, incest, birth defects, health of the mother) are typical but always at the rock bottom for reasons cited as to why women actually have abortions. Indeed, how many rapes occur in Poland annually per capita and how many of those actually result in a pregnancy? How frequent are birth defects and how many pregnancies actually threaten to end a mother's life given the modern medical monitoring and care provided to expectant mothers in Western countries like Poland?

But since this is the mantra that is always recited when the topic of abortion comes up one would think that every other pregnant women only got that way due to rape and the baby she is carrying most certainly is deformed and will kill the mother if she takes it to term.

One has to stop and ask if we are talking about women in Poland or women in sub-Saharan Africa.

But even the most cursory look at any statistics show that the top and recurring reason as to why women have abortions are purely for personal socio-economic interests. That is, they still have to finish university or prefer to put their careers first and having a baby would put off or derail such plans. In other words only middle class women want abortion on demand because they are the top users of the procedure. They are not trying to climb out of poverty. They want abortions to maintain or improve their current financial status. If abortions were a means-tested procedure middle class women would either be too embarrassed to talk about it or would have to show their cards and admit that they are the primary beneficiaries. Then of course they would demand that there be no questions asked about income and assets and then expect the state through higher taxation (on men mainly due to being the primary wage earners) to cover the costs.

Indeed, so-called "poor women" often prefer to have babies particularly when big daddy government is there and ready to provide handouts to both mother and child or be there to force the father to pay child support via the courts.

As far as equality goes, abortion never takes the interest of the father into account. Because all men are rapists and don't deserve a voice? Well, there most certainly have and still are plenty of feminazis out there who propagate such lies. But again reality shows us that abortion is only wanted by middle class women so they can have options purely for themselves.

Oh, and then there is the specter of back alley abortions being carried out with cheap wire coat hangers. Yes, truly gruesome, especially since it greatly increases the likelihood of the mother having to see the aborted fetus with her own eyes rather than pampered in a clinic and delicately distracted with music and videos or knocked out with anesthesia until the butchery is over. Still, even today, there are accounts of botched abortions in clinics with women being left sterile, disabled, or dying afterwards.

And the majority of society have no issues at all with the present law, namely that a woman can decide to retain or terminate a pregnancy.

Basically, if anti-abortionists don't want an abortion, nobody is forcing them to have one.

That's a disgusting thing to say, and it's exactly the reason why thousands upon thousands of women took to Polish streets today.

A nice day for a Sunday stroll.

Notice how the most dismissive of abortion rights are the ones that live in places where abortions can be obtained easily and freely.

Oh? How were they dressed? Middle class or dirt poor?

Don't bother to answer that because we all know the answer.

Poor women aren't involved in activism and social change. They make do but are studied by the middle class and become statistical footnotes. That way the middle class can have a job doing this and then use the poor as a convenient excuse to increase benefits across the board but primarily for themselves and without having to say so.

Indeed, poor women would be at home taking care of their children while barren middle class women wanting financial independence from men will take to the streets claiming they are there advocating for poor women. They should just admit they want the procedure for themselves rather than being a bunch a fakes and using the gossamer appearance of altruism to cover up their own self-interests.

Perhaps because the number of maternal deaths occurring could no longer be ignored? It might well have been regarded as criminal in the eyes of the law, but those women must have been desperate to undergo backstreet abortions.

Presumably the government at the time thought that it wasn't going to stop and at least if abortion were decriminalized, it would put an end to those dying needlessly.


You might be right, but at least women were given the option to have abortions safely instead of risking their lives, which to my mind is a good thing.


Exactly as it should be.


Do you really think that women undergo abortions lightly? And for those sort of reasons? You make it sound like it's something that women fit in between shopping and a trip to the dentist.

You come across as having a very low opinion of women full stop tbh.