Police intervention against woman in hospital after taking abortion pills triggers outcry in Poland

Police intervention against a woman hospitalised after taking abortion pills has caused an outcry in Poland. Opposition politicians have condemned the incident – parts of which were caught on film – and called for the dismissal of the chief of police.

Officers are said to have surrounded the woman, who was reportedly ordered to undress, do squats and cough even though she was still bleeding. They also seized the woman’s computer and phone.

Although Poland has some of Europe’s strictest abortion laws, terminating one’s own pregnancy is not a crime. But the police have argued that their intervention was necessary to check whether someone had assisted the woman in terminating her pregnancy, which is an act punishable by up to three years in prison.

The woman, named only as Joanna, was admitted to the emergency ward of Krakow’s Military Hospital at the end of April due to her poor physical and mental state after she had called her doctor and admitted taking abortion pills. The doctor had then called the emergency services.

“The word ‘abortion’ set in motion a sort of almost manhunt,” Joanna told broadcaster TVN. She said that, although she had dreamt of having a child, she decided to terminate her pregnancy after being told it was a threat to her life. It remains unclear who told her this and on what basis.

Shortly after the call with her doctor, an ambulance and a police car appeared in front of Joanna’s house. After she was taken to hospital, female police officers entered the examination room with her and she was asked to undress.

“I undressed. I didn’t take off my underpants because I was still bleeding, and it was too humiliating, degrading for me,” said Joanna. The officers also took away the patient’s phone and laptop.

“A cordon was formed around the patient, it made our work difficult,” one of the doctors working at the ward that day told TVN under the condition of anonymity. “They were unable to state why this patient was being detained by them.”

Joanna’s lawyer, Kamila Ferenc, told newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza that they have filed a complaint against the officers and received confirmation from a court that their actions were unlawful. Ferenc is now preparing to file a claim for compensation.

Following yesterday’s report on the incident by TVN, Kraków’s police force issued a statement saying that the intervention was made because it was suspected that Joanna had been assisted in having an abortion, which is a crime. They are also investigating the attempted aiding or soliciting of suicide.

“The interview with the woman showed that she had been receiving psychiatric treatment for years, had suicidal thoughts on that day, and had taken medication to induce a miscarriage some time before,” said the police. “She reported that she had ordered the medication online, but refused to disclose the details of the purchase.”

The police also initially claimed that the woman smelled of alcohol, but after a few hours they republished the statement without these and many other details.

In the updated statement, the police said they were called out by a psychiatrist regarding “a possible suicide attempt by his patient and the ingestion of substances of unknown origin”.

In a separate statement to news outlet Gazeta.pl, prosecutors confirmed that an investigation is underway into the crimes of aiding or soliciting suicide and assisting a woman in terminating her pregnancy.

The health ministry, meanwhile, told news website Wirtualna Polska that officers had attended the incident “not due to abortion or the use of an abortion pill, but due to a threat to the patient’s life”.

Joanna’s treatment has been widely condemned among politicians from Poland’s centrist and left-wing opposition, who have long accused the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government of overseeing the tightening and draconian enforcement of abortion laws.

“Is this still Poland or already Gilead?” asked MP Katarzyna Kotula, referring to the fictional dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale. “The police state under the rule of PiS is organising a hunt for women? Your sick ideology, religious fanaticism and fundamentalist views are no excuse for persecuting women.”

The political grouping Kotula belongs to, The Left (Lewica), has filed a motion for the national head of police, Jarosław Szymczyk, to be dismissed.

Donald Tusk, leader of Civic Platform (PO), the largest opposition party, also condemned the incident, calling it an “attack by the state services” while praising Joanna for “having the courage to speak out”. He called for a million people to join a protest march that will take place on 1 October.

The issue of abortion has been at the centre of public debate in recent years after a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal in 2020 introduced a near-total ban on abortion.

It outlawed abortions due to the diagnosis of birth defences – which had previously accounted for around 98% of legal terminations. Now abortion is only permitted if it pregnancy threatens the mother’s life or health or if it results from a criminal act such as rape or incest.

Many activists argue that, even in cases where a mother’s health is threatened, doctors are often reluctant to approve abortions for fear of prosecution. They say this has resulted in the deaths of a number of women.

Main image credit: TVN (screenshot)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.