(Warsaw) Tens of thousands of people demonstrated across Poland on Saturday in shock after the death of a pregnant woman, victim, according to women’s rights NGOs, of the legislation in force since the beginning of the year, banning virtually all abortions.
Izabela, 30 years old and whose pregnancy had started 22 weeks earlier, died at the end of September in a hospital in Pszczyna in Silesia (south).
“The doctors waited for the fetus to die. The fetus is dead, the patient is dead. Septic shock, ”Jolanta Budzowska, the family lawyer, wrote in a tweet. According to her, Izabela is the first to have lost her life as a result of the decision of the Constitutional Court of October 2020, which entered into force at the end of January.
The Court, supported by the nationalist government of Law and Justice (PiS), then prohibited the voluntary termination of pregnancy in the event of a serious malformation of the fetus, which resulted in the prohibition of any abortion except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.
PHOTO MARCIN STEPIEN, AGENCJA WYBORCZA.PL VIA REUTERS
“Not one more! Chanted the thousands of demonstrators in Warsaw who gathered in front of the seat of the Tribunal before going to the Ministry of Health.
“I am here so that no woman’s life is in danger anymore. The current legislation is killing women, ”Ewa Pietrzyk, a 40-year-old Warsaw woman, wearing a photo of Izabela told AFP.
Similar protests took place in around seventy other Polish cities.
According to a statement from her family, the doctors at Pszczyna hospital “adopted a wait-and-see attitude”, which Izabela interpreted as a desire on the part of the latter not to have to perform an abortion.
Anyone, including doctors helping to perform abortions, is liable to a three-year prison sentence.
“The child weighs 485 grams. For now, thanks to the abortion law, I have to stay in bed. And there is nothing they can do. They will wait until he dies or until something starts and, if not, I can, great, expect sepsis, ”Izabela wrote to her mother in one of her released texts.
“My fever is rising. I hope I don’t have sepsis or I won’t get out of it, ”she wrote again,“ It’s horrible, my life is in danger. And I have to wait ”.
Married for ten years, Izabela had a nine-year-old daughter.
According to the nationalists in power, the death of this young woman is not due to the decision of the Tribunal.
Two doctors from Pszczyna hospital were suspended from their duties after his death and the local prosecutor’s office opened an investigation.
According to women’s rights organizations, several thousand Polish women have asked for help with the goal of performing an abortion, mainly abroad.