Poland’s central healthcare information system is to include information on whether a patient is pregnant. Women’s rights activists and opposition politicians have criticised what they call a “pregnancy register”, saying it could be misused by a government that has overseen the introduction of a near-total ban on abortion.
But the health ministry denies such claims, insisting the move only expands the current system in accordance with European Commission guidelines, is in keeping with plans first made when the main opposition party was in power, and is designed to support healthcare for pregnant women.
Under a regulation signed by health minister Adam Niedzielski on Friday, medical personnel will collect additional data from patients from October this year. This will include information on allergies, blood group as well as pregnancy, explained health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusewicz.
“A pregnancy register in a country with an almost complete ban on abortion is terrifying,” responded Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, an MP for The Left (Lewica). “Even today, Polish women avoid getting pregnant out of fear that they will be forced to give birth in every situation. There are even more reasons to be scared now.”
Andrusewicz, however, rejected such criticism. “We are not creating any register, but only expanding the reporting system based on European Commission recommendations,” he said, noting that work on preparing the guidelines was concluded in 2013, when Civic Platform (PO), now the largest opposition party, was in power.
Prokurator po poronieniu?
Tropienie, czy kobieta wyjechała przerwać ciążę za granicą?Polki już dziś nie zachodzą w ciążę z obawy przed przymusem porodu w każdej sytuacji. Powodów do strachu właśnie przybyło.
Rejestr ciąż w kraju z niemal całkowitym zakazem aborcji przeraża.
— A. Dziemianowicz-Bąk (@AgaBak) June 5, 2022
Andrusewicz added that it is part of moves to align Poland with other European Union states as part of the International Patient Summary, which is set to operate from next year.
“Its implementation is obligatory for all EU states,” he noted. “Including pregnancy…is absolutely justified considering the importance of this information in terms of the healthcare process.”
“The standard for patient documentation is recording information about their health condition,” Niedzielski said last year, when criticism of the plans first emerged. “Information about pregnancy is currently included in a patient’s paper documentation, and now it will be recorded electronically.”
In the justification for the regulation, the health ministry says that the pregnant woman’s health is the prime concern, as “some examinations cannot be carried out during pregnancy or require a change in procedure”, reports Gazeta.pl.
“In certain cases, norms for pregnant women are different from those outside of pregnancy”, while “information that a patient is pregnant means noting the need to take particular care in selection of proposed supplementary tests and recommended medication”, it explains.
Andrusewicz also noted that only a patient’s doctor will have access to the information. However, Federa, a women’s reproductive rights group, warns that it is “easy to imagine a situation in which a doctor, seeing a patient who is no longer pregnant, starts asking questions”.
Since the introduction of the near-total abortion ban last year, pro-choice activists and some in the medical community warn that doctors fear legal repercussions under the tougher law, which leads them to provide or deny treatment in a manner that puts women’s health and lives at risk. Supporters of the ban deny this.
Meanwhile Wojciech Klicki of Panoptykon, a human rights group, told Gazeta Wyborcza today it is not true that only doctors will have access to the information. Law enforcement agencies, including prosecutors, will also have access, he said.
Opposition politicians remain unconvinced by the health ministry’s explanation for the newly expanded register.
Krzysztof Brejza, a PO senator who strongly criticised the original plans, said that the medical community had not given a positive opinion of the proposals and that there had been no signal in recent years of the need for the introduction of a “pregnancy register”.
“What has changed is that a draconian, inhuman ruling was introduced,” he told Wirtualna Polska, referring to the constitutional court ruling that outlawed abortions due to birth defects, which previously made up over 90% of all legal terminations in Poland. “This is building an oppressive state intimidating citizens. This is Orwell’s 1984.”
Pro-choice activists have attempted to allay some concerns, however. “The most important thing that does not change is the FACT that people who are pregnant are not punished for terminating their own pregnancy, and there is no proposal in parliament to change that,” wrote Abortion Dream Team, a group that helps women obtain abortions.
Main image credit: Adam Stepien / Agencja Gazeta
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
