Polish police detain man who tried to buy horse medicine that can induce abortions

Police detained a man after he came to a pharmacy to buy medicine that had been prescribed by a vet for his sick horse, but which could also in theory be used to induce miscarriages in humans in violation of Poland’s strict abortion laws.

The incident took place on Friday in the southern city of Kraków when the man sought to obtain medication to treat ulcers in the horse that his daughter rides, his wife told Polish media outlets.

The couple had been warned by the vet who prescribed the pills – a large quantity of which were needed due to the size of the horse – that the pharmacy may ask questions given that the drug can be used to induce miscarriages. But she said that the pharmacist would call her to clarify that the prescription was genuine.

However, when the man arrived at the pharmacy to collect the medicine, which had been pre-ordered, he was informed that staff would not dispense the pills.

The police were then called and the man was detained and taken for questioning. After a few hours – during which time the police contacted the vet to confirm the validity of the prescription – he was released without charge.

The manager of the pharmacy confirmed to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily that she had refused to dispense the drug because it “contains an ingredient that I suspected was used for non-medical purposes”. She would not, however, explain to the newspaper why she had not just called the vet to verify the prescription.

Although the manager claimed that the client himself had called the police, the police confirmed that “a pharmacy employee notified us of a suspected counterfeit prescription”. They added that, “after we confirmed with the vet that everything was correct, the detainee was released”.

Subsequently, the man and his wife returned to the pharmacy to finally obtain the prescription, which had now been confirmed as genuine. But they were told that the medicine had been returned to the vendor and was no longer available. “Meanwhile, our animal is sick and suffering,” the wife told Gazeta Wyborcza.

A Kraków judge, Maciej Czajka, has announced that he and his colleagues have organised legal assistance for the family to take their case further. He says that the real reason for the police being called out was “the suspicion that the ‘horse’ prescription was being used for abortifacient purposes”.

Poland has long had some of Europe’s strictest abortion laws, and they were tightened further in 2021 when a near-total ban on abortion was introduced. That has led to growing demand in the country for pills that can induce a medical abortion.

While possession of such tablets is not an offence, supplying them can be, under a 1997 law that criminalises “providing a pregnant woman with help in terminating a pregnancy or inducing her to do so”. The offence carries a sentence of up to three years in prison.

Last week, a women’s rights activist, Justyna Wydrzyńska, was found guilty of that crime by a Polish court, receiving a sentence of community service.

Main image credit: Katrina Swinnley/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.