It was preceded by the death of a pregnant woman, which could have been avoided if, according to her relatives, doctors had proceeded with an abortion once they saw that the fetus she was carrying had little hope of survival.
Thousands of Poles demonstrated in Warsaw today to denounce the death of a pregnant woman, which they blamed on the anti-abortion law, one of the most restrictive in Europe.
Dorota Lalik, 33, died on May 24 in a hospital in Nowy Targ, southern Poland. She had been admitted there three days earlier, just after her waters had broken.
She died of sepsis caused by the death of the 20-week-old fetus she was carrying, her family said in a statement.
“The nurses told her to lie down with her legs over her head to keep the water in,” Dorota Lalik’s husband told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper. “No one proposed to induce a miscarriage to save Dorota, since the baby’s chances of survival were slim,” added Marcin Lalic.
The anti-abortion law theoretically allows doctors to perform an abortion if the woman’s life is in danger, but in reality it is so restrictive that doctors are afraid to do so.
“They are causing the death of young women, young mothers in Poland because they are afraid of the consequences or have a certain vision of the world,” Yulia Czeslak, a 40-year-old protester holding a banner that read: “Stop killing us!” told AFP. .
Similar demonstrations were held in nearly fifty Polish cities and towns.
“Everything is politics when you’re a woman in Poland,” criticized another protester, Katarzyna Kotula, a New Left lawmaker. “Especially if you’re pregnant,” she added. “Because of political decisions, women die in Polish hospitals”.
In March, a Polish activist was sentenced by a Warsaw court to community service for assisting in an abortion — an unprecedented case in Poland.
According to a poll conducted in early March, 83.7% of Poles are in favor of lifting the abortion ban. Only 11.5% of respondents would like the existing legal status to be maintained.
Traditionally Catholic, Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws when the Constitutional Court last year sided with the populist-nationalist government in declaring it “unconstitutional” to terminate a pregnancy in case of fetal malformation.
Source :Skai
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