Abortion still under control in Poland

Professor Bogdan Chazan :)
OK! A woman has been directed to Professor Chazan from a medical centre to terminate her pregnancy. Although it is well know in Warsaw not only in medical circles that he refuses to do that on principle.

That was a second or third pregnancy that woman wanted to terminate due to genetic abnormalities.
By the way all her pregnancies - result of IVF.

Myths and facts:
He prevented her from havening abortion. A lie number one.
He had no way of preventing her from going elsewhere if she wanted to.

He was fired because he refused to do this or that. Not true, he had the right to refuse it.
No, he was fired for political reasons. Pretext - there is an entry in that law that says that a doctor should point out such a woman to a doctor that is willing to help her with her plans to abort that child.

That is merely a technicality, after all in newspapers, internet, anywhere you can find the right dude for a job. We are talking Warswa, we are talking grown married woman not a teen, a women that knew how to go about IVF no less.

However, PO is ruling in Warsaw they used their influence to kick him out, possibly as a favour.

The same people are right now in a deep trouble as it came to light that they are all mixed up in a corruption and theft scandal. That have been going for years and involves millions of dollars, billions even.

My opinion:, that was evidently a provocation, someone used that woman to get rid of the good doctor, either to take his place as the director of that hospital, or because he was standing in the way to expand their venture to make lots of money on the abortion business which is big.

I would look closely with whom Professor Debski is associated, who is in charge of the hospital now and with whom that person is connected? That would answer few questions.

Exactly. The law requires this and he didn't do it. He broke the law. If his "conscience" prevents him from doing the job he's being paid to do then he needs to change jobs.


Immaterial. It was his job. He dind't do it.


If he was stupid enough to fall for it, then good riddance. All he had to do was his job.


That is your right.

Nonsense that is only technicality. In non soviet minded court such a case would never stand. It would be enough if he would have said to her - you can find someone on the internet or ask in the reception. More, it could be well argued if she reality wanted that abortion she would find the way easily. After all that woman knew how to go about to get so called IVF treatment.

Unfortunately in Poland majority of judges are not much and the law and its interpretation is soviet in its spirt, not to mention corruption.


No, that is criminal mind-set maketis. That is the way crooks think.
He has his principles he stand by them and he is doing a good job and there is no need for him to be wary of some traps, provocation and other such a shady deals.

System in any normal democratic country should be set to provide protection for law abiding, upstanding, honest citizens even from a poorly worded legislation.
That correction should be done by courts, however courts in Poland are appalling in handing out issues, and evidently not up to task, just rulings are not on the menu, or last on the menu.


He is not a robot. It could be even argued that abortion is not a part of the job description for a doctor.

Did he actually say this?


He wasn't doing his job (which includes redirecting procedures his "conscience" won't allow to other doctors)


No one is going to improve the problem of badly written legislation by dismantling the constitutional tribunal or making it a rubber stamp agency... just saying.


He was an employee charged with fulfilling certain tasks which he did not do. Quite enough cause for termination. And if abortion is not part of the job description for a doctor how could doctors save the lives of women when continuing with pregnancy would endanger the mother's life?

I understand your point of view on this, I was only ever trying to point out that your statement regarding a simple yes or no answer to whether someone has the right to take the life of another is not that simple. It might be out of the context of this debate, but still a valid point when considering the sanctity of life overall.


You don't know that, it is merely your opinion. He condemned the actions of Chazan because he did in fact break the law, Chazan himself has admitted that when interviewed.


Unexpectedly? A new law was proposed to ban all abortion, and the government was surprised women were out on the streets protesting? That would be funny if it wasn't so serious :D


That's more or less what Maf said in his post but if you're both right, then he's going about it in totally the wrong way. All his talk, if that is all it is, of a new restrictive bill is putting Poland and the government in the international spotlight for all the wrong reasons. He is doing Poland no favours at all.


His actions resulted in her missing the deadline for a legal termination.




To start with what difference does it make whether the womans' pregnancies were a result of IVF or not? Do you think that should somehow preclude her from the right to a legal abortion if she is carrying a severely deformed child?

Your quotes also read as if you are blaming the woman concerned for Chazan's failings to do his job properly.


Yes he did, no-one asked him to perform the operation, but legally he was obliged to find her a doctor who would perform the surgery. That was his duty as a doctor and he failed in that duty. Plus, he apparently ordered unnecessary tests which pushed her over the deadline for an abortion.


But it was not her responsibility to find a doctor herself to perform the abortion was it? Not that it's the same thing, but if you needed a hip replacement urgently, would you expect a doctor to tell you to find someone yourself to perform your surgery? Of course you wouldn't. That was part of his job. In addition, i don't think it is quite so simple to find willing doctors either. There are over 3000 doctors in Poland who have signed the conscience clause and will not perform abortions.


Even if what you say is true, it would never had happened if he had done what he as a doctor was obliged to do by law. He signed an oath remember. As I said before, he ( or other doctors for that matter ), should not be working in gynaecology if their conscience is going to get in the way of their professional duty.

Sure, saving life is in the job description for a doctor, an abortion is very rarely dangerous to mother's life. In the case of doctor Chazan mother was in no danger. An abortion doesn't equal saving life quite the opposite.


I think we are arguing here about semantics.


Sure, like everything that is being written here is someone opinion but sometimes it is also a fact at the same time.


Several:
First of all she wasn't same stupefied teen but somebody well versed and experienced in all that pertain abortions and pregnancy.
Hence that reliance on a doctor to refer he to somebody else is just pained too large to be truth.

Second of all, I personally think that women is not sane and maybe having to give a birth to a sick child would be a wake up call, she is not buying a doll in the shop for goodness sake.

It wasn't her first pregnancy either.


No, I just think that all that circumstances are shady like a provocation - that all!


Yes, as I said those were protests organized by KOD, a post-soviet establishment stooge without real substantial support among the populace. The can gather a few paid actors if there is must but this time they were joined by many women - in that context it was unexpected.

To see it in the other context - number of the protesters, counting them at max and really generously was about 100 000, whereas project of the law to ban abortion had been signed by more than 500 000.


That is your opinion.


Sure it was. Why would that be somebody else responsibility? That paragraph is outdated.


That what the conflict was about. Professor Chazan claims that doctors have the right to act according with their conscience.
Being an example to others - some one doesn't like it! Some one with the access to the real money - simple.


I beg to differ. She could have go to the same doctor she went to before. Why change a doctor? eh?


Maybe, I don't care. He and PiS are étatist, socialist, pro-EU and softies that talk big but act small.


Poland need to build its own strong economy, their own alliance and their own nuclear weapon and cutting edge technologies, then all those spotlights, groups of interest and lobbyist can go and .......! Since then - who cares?

How would she have experience and knowledge of abortions? She was trying to have a baby. To my knowledge she had had 4 previous miscarriages, not abortions.



You see Iron, you're doing it again. Rather than admit that what Chazan did was to break the law, as he himself has admitted, you attack the woman instead and try to blame her for his failings.

The point is that it was his job to refer her to someone else, no matter how knowledgeable she might or might not have been regarding abortion.

As he says himself when interviewed:-

" Can a Polish doctor really refuse to have anything to do with an abortion?

Quite simply, no, he cannot. He especially can't refuse in an ostentatious way, like I did.

Ostentatious?

I'm talking about a situation when a doctor in a clear and firm way refuses to refer a patient to another doctor or another facility to get an abortion."

lifesitenews.com/news/lynched-fined-and-dismissed-an-interview-with-polands-dr.-bogdan-chazan

He clearly admitted that he was wrong by those very statements, yet you want to blame the woman concerned by making her out to be a liar?

His statements also address your other question:-


It was the responsibility of a doctor as admitted.


Not quite.

"An investigation by the mayor's office accused Chazan of ordering unnecessary tests that delayed the woman's abortion request, prolonging her pregnancy beyond 24 weeks of gestation, the time when doctors generally consider an unborn baby "viable." After viability, abortion of a handicapped baby in Poland is illegal. The hospital was also fined $23,000, and Chazan was given a three-month job termination notice and placed on leave."

world.wng.org/2014/08/the_doctor_who_refused_to_abort


His beliefs would not be important were it not for the fact that he is a doctor. Can you imagine what would happen if every Polish doctor acted the way that he did and broke the law? Like it or not, that woman was entitled to an abortion, and his beliefs got in the way of his professional duty. Now he has paid the price for that. What I personally think is that he was probably made a scapegoat for what amounted to be a high profile case, but there is a reason for that.

Did you know that he was also fired from another hospital in similar circumstances?

" This isn't the first time Chazan has made a costly stand on principle: Twelve years ago, he was dismissed as head of the obstetrics and gynecology clinic of another Warsaw hospital, the National Research Institute of Mother and Child, following a similar situation. " ( Also from the above link ).

If that were not enough, he also refuses to perform caesarian sections, because he has " declared respect for the sanctity of the human body ".

Great to know that in a medical emergency when the baby has to be delivered as quickly as possible, he won't do it.

As far as I'm concerned this guy is trying to play god. Before he took up the position at the last hospital he was fired from, he said that abortions had been performed there, but in his 10 years as director, abortion had been carried out only once, when he was apparently away on vacation. He said that he usually managed to make people change their minds. Says it all really.

He reminds me of the surgeon in Kings Row (old American novel) who always found excuses for not using anesthesia - it turns out he enjoyed inflicting pain on his patients when he could. I'm convinced Chazan is cut from the same cloth. He's a sadist who does what he can to make his patients suffer....

a lot of them seem to go in for gynaecology dont they?

Invoking the conscience clause is the right of every Polish physician. And, as you say, he saved budding Polish lives throuhg his power of persuasion. More power to him!

Looks that way, doesn't it.

You should here what other, more rational, doctors are saying about him right now.

You mean greedy abortion-mill owners. And it's no wonder. People of conscience are BAD FOR BUSINESS!

No such thing, Po.

Real doctors, decent people.

Real doctors cure, butchers kill.

And enjoy their patients' suffering, not unlike a certain Dr Ch....

Again?


That is rather obvious isn't it? I rather skip over something which is blindingly obvious to talk about important stuff. What are you taking me for? To deny a fact would make me an unreasonable (looking for a word here ...) Harry?


I expect people to be reasonable adults as they claim to be not an inept tools as there is often the case.
I don't blame her, I only reason rightly that if she knew how to go about VIF she should be able to get herself an abortion without much of a difficulty. Maybe money is the answer - I don't know but can't help to remain suspicious here.


Sure, but in my opinion that is only technicality something that made sense 20 years ago, outdated and redundant now. I would expect a real judge to take it into consideration not just to be a stickler to the letter of the law.

A fine would do the trick - punishment that fit the crime - fire him - no!


Depend on the law. If by breaking that law he would be in accord with a natural law and a morality that it wouldn't bother me.


Many very good doctors do that, goes with the job. The question is has his 'discretion' in this case been so bad that warranted his dismissal? I say - Nay!


That is your opinion that sounds like assassination of character. Lesser people would ask you to prove it or pay up!

Dr Ch did not stick around to watch anyone suffer. That is yet anotehr of your hairy-bollocksy fact distorions. He availed himself of the conscience clause and had ever right to do.

The conscience clause does not allow him to to refuse to give a referral to a doctor prepared to carry out the procedure in question. That's why he lost his job. Had he simply said "I can't do this, see doctor X" no one would care.


But I bet he got off on knowing she was suffering while carrying to term a fetus with no chance of life beyond suffering.

It does make a difference. Test-tube babies evoke the aura of some B-movie mad scientist tampering with the origin of human life. It can also promote dysfunctional households by having surrogates bear children for two homos via the test-tube route. It is a fallacy to claim that everyone can have everything in life. Not all married couples can have children. Someone 5'2" will not be accepted into the NBA. Someone with 2 left feet cannot be a ballet dancer.

Homophobia Po, homophobia. As well as other sheer nastiness toward those other ordinary decent people who have a family that they struggled medically to get. How many grandchildren do you have, by the way? I bet their little faces light up with joy when you express such opinions to them.

More precisely, anti-dysfunctionality. Anything that undermines the normal, nuclear family by promoting radical diversity as its equivalent alternative destroys human society. That is the position of the Catholic Church and all decent, thinking people. Never forget, leftists and liberals want to stand everything on its head. Conservatives go with the time-tested and proven. Human society is too delicate a substance to ride rough-shod over or subject to off-the-wall experiments.

I pointed out some quotes in my post #1491 which to me read as if you were trying to blame the woman for Chazan's failings.


Except you haven't made it blindingly obvious to me. I pointed out that you would rather blame the woman than admit that Chazan broke the law. Now you are saying that it is obvious he broke the law and what do I take you for.

Honestly Iron, I'm not trying to be deliberately difficult here, but these statements of yours lead me to believe ( or maybe I have wrongly misconstrued them ), that you in fact deny that he had broken the law, hence my query in the first place:-


His actions did in fact prevent her from having an abortion.


He had the right to refuse to perform the abortion itself, he did not have the right to refuse to refer her to a doctor who would.


From what I have read, she was turned down by two hospitals prior to contacting Chazan, maybe it isn't so easy as you seem to think. Besides, it still wasn't her job to arrange her own abortion, it was his job as a doctor to do that. Why are you putting the onus on her?


He couldn't have been fired for something that was outdated and redundant now could he? He broke current laws.


I say yes. That was the second time his beliefs got in the way of him doing his job, and I'm damn sure the Mayor knew that when she fired him. I've got no doubt that he was probably fired to set a precedent. Had he not been disciplined in the strongest possible way, then it would have opened the door for more doctors to do as he did, which is illegal, like it or not.

The woman who gave birth was put through completely unnecessary trauma thanks to him, and that child had a lingering death. To what end? Pain and suffering all round.


In what way does that really nasty reply make a difference to my question to Iron, which was:-


But you weren't addressing my question were you? You just selected a piece of my quote so you could bang on about IVF and gay couples, spreading your nasty vile and twisted views as is usual for you.


Giving couples who might have otherwise remained childless, a family of their own.

Not that it is the same thing, but I bet you have had your kids vaccinated against Polio. You might want to look at the 1954 Nobel Prize winners for medicine. It is their work with foetal tissue which led to the development of the vaccine. I suppose you won't approve of that either, but for sure your kids will have had their vaccinations. Hypocrite much?

I disagree with it. That is a certain interpretation of what has happened. Does it matters now? He got fired. I think he shouldn't be fired.


Geez I do not deny that he had broken the law. I'm point out some issues plus my reasoning why in fact I do not agree with the severity of the punishment he and hospital had been served with.


I think I have explained why in my pervious post.


We can agree to disagree.


Which is redundant and outdated now.

As we do on just about every topic ;)

The Polish parliament kept this pretty quiet. A new law was passed yesterday which will pay women a one- off 4000 PLN payment for having a baby with severe and possibly lethal developmental problems, rather than terminating the pregnancy. Opponents are saying it's another attempt to tighten abortion laws.

politico.eu/article/poland-to-pay-women-whose-babies-have-life-threatening-health-problems

you are wrong - it was all over the media here - but I don't blame you - you don't have contact with live Polish media

We don't ?
Yesterday thousands of Poles, mostly women, have marched through Warsaw and other Polish cities to demand greater reproductive rights and protest what they see as discrimination by the conservative government.

How women can protest for the right to kill their own child (abortion) seems so barbaric.

They don't. The march was about the morning after pill, and cases where women have been forced to carry a dead and sometimes calcified foetus to full term and give birth to a dead baby.

How doctors let this woman and her child die seems barbaric to me Johnny. This is the kind of thing that women are protesting about.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar

Not women but some women and most of them are leftie nutters anyway. One has to be an idiot to claim that abortion is a solution to a medical error.

@Chemikiem

That's pretty bogus IMO. 4K pln payment to take care of a child with disabilities is nothing. I think that abortion has been overused in the West, but nonetheless I look at it as a necessary evil. There's a lot of situations where condoms break or things happen and imo a child is generally better off being raised in a family that planned ahead.

Is the morning after pill legal in Poland? Is it over the counter (or basically like with pharmacists' permission) like in US?