Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers!

For a country that can't afford a fully-functioning health care system and doesn't want to make simple changes to regulations that block childless couples from adopting, Donald Tusk is going to make in vitro treatment fully refundable of the NFZ.

Bonkers!

Give us dialysis machines, scanners, electronic surgical aids, growth hormone, edible hospital food, motivated nurses on a living wage ...

This is a politically motivated move which is designed to divide society along the usual Polish lines. I have absolutely nothing against in vitro, but not at the cost of people dying.

He should make adoption by childless couples possible. At present, in practice, you can only adopt if you already have kids. The obstacles they put in the way of childless couples is heartless and, frankly, dumb in the extreme.

Yet again, you neglect to post the real facts.

IVF may be funded, it may not be. But it's certain that it will be only funded for the poorest people, and it's unlikely to be funded for more than one attempt. Bear in mind that Poland needs new babies, it's not a bad investment.

Sorry about that - just a Warsaw Voice information blip, not my fault!

One round of in vitro?? Daft idea medically. No, hold on a moment. Great idea! It won't change actual availability one iota (typically, you need a few tries) and it will divide the country. Brilliant.

No Poland is not in need of new babies. There really is no shortage of people.

Ah, Harry is going to enlighten us as to why Poland doesn't face a demographic timebomb like elsewhere in Europe.
Perhaps he has a solution:
Technology perhaps?
Global warming, making us all live more cheaply?
Making people work until the day they die?

There are more than enough people on this planet. The problem is that most of them are the wrong colour for you. So the solution would be that you stop seeing European people as better than non-European people.

Varsovian again I agree with you! :)
A year ago there was a media action about kids with hemophilia. It was shocking that some kinds of hemophilia made bleedings into joints so that after few years without proper treatment healthy kids lands on wheelchairs!!! Medicines for hemophilia are not refunded in Poland and s month dose is a cost of something like 10 000 PLN!!!!


The cost of rising a child is far much than 10 000PLN (cost of one in vitro attempt). If someone doesn't have such money then they have no money to raise at all.

About population problems. I never got it why they are making such a noise about it. There is lots of imigrants who wish to live in Poland and if there will be not enough work force to pay for pentions they can always open borders for some workforce. If someone don't like "ppl of color" he might think of Ukrainians for which working in Poland is highly profitable.

Polish archbishops slam plans for liberal in vitro law

Poland's Roman Catholic church appealed Monday to the country's politicians to oppose in vitro fertilization, calling the procedure akin to eugenics.

Poland has one of the lowest birthrates in the European Union and the state has been struggling to find ways to encourage families to have more children. It's an issue that takes on added urgency with a population expected to age in coming decades and a ballooning deficit that will make it harder to support the aged.

Archbishop Hoser, who heads a church council on bioethics, threatened excommunication to lawmakers who support in vitro fertilization.

I watched the news and I got the feeling that someone in the church must have got crazy. Why start a war they cannot win? I am really curious how they are going to step back from this imposible to maintain position, when the time comes.

What is the wrong colour?

What a stupid, stupid move. It's direct interference in politics by the Church - who should have learnt a lesson over the recent cross crisis that people do not want the Church to get involved in politics. Sadly, they've chosen to stick their nose in again - and will end up being punished yet again. It's not an issue right now when the churches are full, but it will only mean that younger people will continue to shun the church in times to come.


For many Poles, anything non-white.

Personally I have no theoretical problem with in vitro but I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to make taxpayers pay for it.


I thought the mainstream church behaved fairly reasonably in the cross crisis. It wasn't church officials that were rabble rousing.

I don't catch one thing when I visit PF.
Why so many people and so many aspects of threads are conneced with Church, Catholic bishops, priests, reformations, being retarded (because Polish are Catholic so therefore they are retarded...) and so on...

Why do you see Poland in this way?
Geeees...

I think the problem was that some of them were getting involved, while others were quite clearly saying "It's nothing to do with us". The lack of a clear position definitely hurt them - and when they finally did adopt a clear position, it was almost universally ignored - possibly because everyone knew that they weren't unified at all.

Even the latest stand against in vitro seems to be completely divided - first we have someone threatening excommunication, but the communique from them seems to be much calmer.


Because in this case, the church has directly interfered with the workings of a modern democratic state.

There's a shortage of teenagers.

I don't agree with you.
The church gives directions and does not, in any case, force believers to anything.
A base of every religion is freedom.
And freedom is natural for Catholic religion as well.

And you don't believe that threatening excommunication to MP's isn't interfering directly with politics? We've seen examples of them doing it in the recent Presidential election, it's happening again - the Church simply cannot "let go" in Poland and allow the country to be a modern democracy - perhaps because they realise that they might have to pay back some of their ill-gotten gains.

The RCC in Poland has one huge problem - they had massive political say during the PRL, and now, they can't let go. You saw exactly the same thing in Italy, Spain, the same thing is happening in Ireland and it's starting to happen in Poland, too.

Then again, the Church was hiring ex-SB guys, so is anyone surprised?

Politics and bishops -a wonderful team! Really!

"The birth of one child leads in each case to the death - at different stages of the medical procedure - of many other lives," the letter said.

I believe they are right.

And herein lies the problem. Instead of simply presenting the Vatican's stance on the issue, they've decided to try and bully the Sejm instead. Catholics don't need to be told that IVF is bad (everyone knows already, right?) - and they don't need to blackmail the Sejm either.

The worst thing about all of this is that if they had simply kept quiet, the odds are that the current status quo would continue. But now - all they've done is draw attention to the cause, when the political opinion would likely see IVF neither funded nor banned formally.

How has the Church interfered in the workings of a democratic system? Are priests and bishops not citizens? Should they alone be deprived of free speech. They did not send goon squads streaming into the Sejm to obstruct a vote. All they did was speak their mind. They have no power other than persuasion. They have to reflect the principles espoused by the Church and not try to curry favour with the plebians and keep the pews filled on Sunday. They can raise the spectre of excommunication, but the godless will laugh or shrug that off anyway, so where's the problem? When the beer barons, drug lords, homo agitators, mobile phone folks, rock stars and others try to sell something -- that's OK. But when a churchman does the same, he is interfering. That is called Kali's morality: Kali ukraść krowę dobrze, Kalemu ukraść - źle! The Poles online will understand.

Polonius3 clergy has no right to use church to persuades people to vote and hide behind free speech laws.
If clergy had their way in driving society in a direction we still would know that earth is flat, we would have to work one day a week for church and then the priest would come and get the tenth of our wealth and possible we still be in dark ages and the Spanish inquisition, churches are not a moral compass and priests are not moral people the need to stay away from standing in way of development and progress.

Its an investment, that baby thats created will be a tax payer, (this sounds awful but phuck it) that person with cancer will die and will have had 1,000s spent on him with no return..

Im all for invetro, life is cruel and if there is medical science out there that can give a childless couple what they dream and long for then it should be available..

I'd say threatening people with excommunication for voting a particular way is direct interference with the workings of democracy. Era doesn't threaten to disconnect MP's who might increase corporation taxes, do they?

But you're not in Poland and don't see the day-to-day problems caused by RCC interference in Polish politics. After all, it doesn't bother you that the State lost millions of zloty due to fraud perpetrated by the Church, does it?

I'd say the RC has every right to threaten members with excommunication for whatever internal RC reason they think up. As a non-catholic I have no standing to evaluate internal church affairs are between the church and the faithful.

I don't want them trying to set civic law for non-catholics though.

Overall in Polish politics there's far too much concern with telling other people how to live their lives. Whatever happened to 'individual conscience'?

Finally is there any evidence that this would boost low birth rates? AFAICT the problem isn't fertility but women choosing to not have kids because of employment concerns (and the fact that most women don't want more than one or two kids and won't have more unless coerced).

It is a tough nut, but I agree with the OP and many of other posters here: there is so many more urgent things to spend funds on, diseases we don't even hear which treatment costs a lot. In these circumstances having an IVF refunded is a bit of a luxury. It costs about 13.000 PLN as I read. It is not that expensive compared with some incureable diseases that demand constant treatment and expenses.

Where is the constitutional basis stating that there is one class of citizens, the clergy, who are not allowed to express their ideas or try to persuade anyone. Everysbody is allowed to persuade, advcoate, appeal, promote, advertise, etc., etc. Are you advocating extralegal measures against thoise you don't happen to agree with. Would you like yoruself to be muzzled because someone does not share your opinions?

Polonius3, if clergy speak as individual citizens that's one thing. If they speak as representatives of the church, then the church is a political organization and should be treated as such.

No one denies the church's right to try to convince, or even coerce believers. But civic law applies to all citizens and trying to form civic law that caters to catholic sensibilities when non-believers and non-catholics are not in agreement is a violation of the principles of civic society.

- and not to mention harassment of the deputies (I mean threatening with excomunication).

And this is exactly what I object to. If it was truthful, any deputy anywhere that supported IVF or abortion would be excommunicated - but they aren't. In fact, why isn't Komorowski excommunicated for being Commander-in-chief of the armed forces that are murdering innocents in Afghanistan?

The whole thing reeks of trying to manipulate politics for their own gain.

Anyway, what do a bunch of spoiled old men know about families?

But folks, you see what I meant many posts ago?

The govt doesn't help anyone by this move, but it brings out the usual mob with their usual divisive politics. Pavlov par excellence.

So utterly predictable, utterly pathetic, utterly Communist! This is why both Platforma and PiS should be kicked out of Polish politics.