Marcin Lalik visits the grave of his wife Dorota and their son every day after work. “I tell them about the passing days. I can't imagine life without my wife. She was the talkative one, I never shared my feelings with anyone but her, so it is very hard. I cry every day.”Kasia Strek for TIME
By Anna Pamula, TIME, October 13, 2023
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Krzysztof Sowinski has cried every day since his wife Marta, who was five months pregnant, died of sepsis in 2022; he believes doctors put Marta’s life in danger by not giving them the option to terminate the pregnancy while the fetus’ heart was still beating. Janusz Kucharski also lost his partner Justyna to sepsis in the fifth month of a pregnancy. She left behind two boys.
It is likely, reproductive-rights advocates say, that these women would be alive if not for Poland's increasingly restrictive abortion laws. Abortion has been illegal in the country since 1993, but a 2020 ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, which went into effect the next year, removed one of the exceptions to the law—fetal abnormalities—and imposed a near-total ban on abortion. Now women can terminate a pregnancy only if the women’s life or health is at risk (including mental health risks with a psychiatric diagnosis) or if there is reasonable suspicion that the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.
Yet as examples from across the country indicate, what the law allows is not actually what is happening in practice. The consequences of the reproductive-rights rollback have been dire. Women who have abortions are not prosecuted under the law, but doctors and others who help women terminate pregnancies, up to the point of viability, may face up to three years in prison. If an abortion takes place beyond the point of viability, then the person who aided in the abortion may face up to eight years in prison. This creates what many consider a “chilling effect,” as doctors scared of running afoul of the law hesitate to take lifesaving steps for pregnant patients. “Patients are powerless and doctors are increasingly fearful,” says Professor Marzena Debska, a gynecologist at Debski Clinic in Warsaw.
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