We protest against the deprivation of our right to life, health and freedom! – informed the National Women’s Strike. Demonstrations have been announced in the country and abroad.
Ongoing pro-choice protests picked up momentum this week when it was revealed that five months pregnant 33-year-old Dorota died in a hospital in Nowy Targ.
Along with Malta, Poland’s anti-abortion laws are among the most restrictive in Europe, and the country enforced a near total ban on terminations in 2021, sparking mass protests.
We protest against the torture and death of women in delivery wards, hospitals and gynecology offices, against forcing women to carry dangerous and unwanted pregnancies, against forced childbirth, against the ban on abortion, and against violations of the law by doctors.
Dorota was deprived of necessary medical procedures that could have saved her life. On top of that, she was not informed that there was no chance of saving the pregnancy, the Polish Women’s Strike said about the tragic case.
Krystyna Kacpura, head of the Foundation for Women and Family Planning, said that there were at least five cases of pregnant women dying whose families came out to the media, blaming the restrictions on abortion for their deaths.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said that doctors’ errors were to blame and that every woman in Poland had the right to terminate a pregnancy if her life is in danger.
Protests under the slogan #NotOneMore, meaning that no more women should die deprived of abortion, will occur in several Polish cities and towns and abroad, including in Berlin, London and Vienna over the next few days.
In 2021, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy died of septic shock at a hospital in Pszczyna, southern Poland, after doctors waited for her unborn baby’s heart to stop beating.