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Poland: the president wants to restrict access to the morning-after pill
Less than three months before the European elections, the Polish president vetoed free access to the morning-after pill which is currently authorized on medical prescription.
(franceinfo)
Less than three months before the European elections, the Polish president vetoed free access to the morning-after pill which is currently authorized on medical prescription.
It was to allow free access to the morning-after pill without conditions from the age of fifteen. The Polish Parliament’s project was vetoed on Friday March 29 by conservative President Andrej Duda, who asked to re-examine the text. “Mr. President is convinced that in the name of health, in the name of parents’ rights, this type of medication should be available precisely under the control of a doctor and that parents should have the right to express their opinion”justifies Malgorzata Paprocka, Secretary of State in the Chancellery of the Polish President.
Overall decline
This decision is part of a global context of decline in the reproductive rights of Polish women after eight years of the populist Pis (law and justice) party. “We do not protect a child by refusing her the right to dispose of her body or by coercing her, when she does not wish to have a child”, assures Michelle Dayan, lawyer and president of Lawyers for Women. The pro-European coalition, in power since December, strongly protested and planned to circumvent this veto by authorizing pharmacists to issue prescriptions for this pill themselves.
