She denounces “a new tool of repression” towards women. The parliamentary opposition in Poland pointed the finger, Monday, June 6, a government provision obliging doctors to register pregnancies in a digital medical register, in a country where abortion is practically prohibited.
By virtue of an order from the Minister of Health, Adam Niedzielski, information concerning pregnancy must appear in this register alongside information on illnesses, past or present, medical examinations, treatments or blood type. According to the ministry, such information will allow any doctor to help patients both in Poland and abroad, in other EU states.
Opposing, Liberal MP Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz told the press that this registry was born “to be able to persecute and control Polish women, to create a new tool of repression, control, political influence of the state on our lives, on our health, on our families”. “In another era, the transfer of such information into the system would not have caused concern, but in the current situation it is an unequivocal signal for us of a new attempt by the State of interfering in the lives of women”said Joanna Pietrusiewicz, the president of a foundation defending women’s rights, quoted by the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
The opposition and experts point out that in addition to medical personnel, access to the digital medical register can be obtained by the prosecution controlled by the nationalist populists in power, subject to the decision of a court, in this country where violations of the rule of law have been noted on several occasions by European authorities. According to MP Katarzyna Lubnauer, “for six years, slice by slice, the reproductive rights of women have been restricted” Poland.
“First, we introduce emergency contraception on prescription (…), then in vitro fertilization is no longer financed by the state budget, (…) then comes this brutal verdict of the Constitutional Court”, prohibiting, in October 2020, abortion in the event of a serious malformation of the fetus, she listed. Under the law, a woman who has had an abortion is not prosecuted, unlike the doctor who performed it or the people who helped her.