The word stops, the hospitals have received such hellish "guidelines": if the arrival of the baby can even indirectly worsen the mental well-being, it can be rejected.
"Termination of pregnancy is permitted at any time up to the moment of birth," states a ruling party faction leader, a member of the judicial council of his country, in the autumn of 2024, not in some far-liberal corner of California, perhaps geographically far enough away, but not as some kind of desperate Green Party rearguard action in Berlin-Kreuzberg, but:
Karol Wojtyła lost his life in his native country.
The quote comes from a certain Anna Maria Żukowská, a member of parliament of the Polish New Left, an ardent LGBTQ activist, about whom you probably only need to know that she won 2.24 percent of the votes in her constituency in Warsaw in last year's elections.
this is how he got under himself the high horse from the saddle of which he can now speak.
True, his result is quite good compared to his 1.37 percent in 2019 - even with that, he became the vice-chairman of the Justice and Human Rights Committee of the Sejm during the right-wing Morawiecki government. As a detour to the farce called the rule of law, with a significant glance towards Brussels, where the Patriots, who are politicizing with 18 million European voters behind them, do not even get the post of fourth vice-president of the Petitions Committee,
so that they don't turn the continent upside down with phrases like "I'm opening the voting".
So there is this left-wing faction leader in Poland, who just made a statement on the occasion that hospitals received ministerial guidelines the other day to improve access to abortion - after the Sejm failed to achieve a majority for liberalization efforts, the Minister of Health and Justice is the effective by interpreting provisions, it tries to "open the gates" in practice, as Donald Tusk put it.
The released document draws attention to the fact that in fact
the opinion of a single doctor is sufficient for termination of pregnancy, and that doctor can be, for example, a psychiatrist.
If the latter states that carrying and giving birth to the fetus endangers the woman's mental health, from then on there is no obstacle to abortion. And (reminds the Minister of Health) there is no such criterion in the current legislation that the threat to the woman should be direct, immediate or serious - so in fact, the hospital that prevents an abortion based on such conditions commits a violation of the law.
Such a thing can result in a fine of up to half a million zlotys (46 million forints), and even the institution may lose social security support.
However, since abortion can be performed without a time limit in situations that threaten the woman's health, speculation began on social media as to whether the fetus can de facto be killed even in the ninth month based on a single psychiatric paper - in response to this, the left-wing Żukowska explained that a time limit "obviously ” there is no, abortion is allowed at any moment when it comes to the mental health of the woman.
In support of this, Donald Tusk pointed out: the legal regulations do not change, but the philosophy and reality do, since doctors can now feel that the prosecution will not act against them when they "stand by the woman".
It is not clear how the prime minister, who is saving the rule of law, knows so precisely the future intentions of the independent prosecutor's office.
but the point is that the reality is changed without any kind of parliamentary vote, with a single ministerial directive. The Minister of Health classed the assumption that some psychiatrists could issue opinions justifying abortion without good reason as science fiction - being a philologist, he probably hasn't read the latest masterpieces of Dutch science fiction literature on the Dutch news portals about a woman requiring euthanasia due to depression. and about young women receiving a medical certificate, or even mothers with small children.
In addition to all this, two weeks before the publication of the ministerial guidelines, the Ministry of Health fired the national consultant responsible for obstetrics and gynecology over the phone for ideological reasons.
according to whom one should act more carefully and should not carry out unlimited abortions on the basis of a single piece of paper with the vague reason of endangering "mental health"
- and then maybe we will get a complete picture of what it is like when a well-coiffed force that comes to power in a moderate center-right costume does not limit itself to moderate middle-of-the-road corrections, solid center-right solutions, but quietly, smilingly and with the rule of law, but resolutely he enthusiastically ticks off a point on the agenda of his leftist colleagues.
Featured image: MTI/PAP/Adam Warzawa
