A gynaecologist has been charged in Poland with unlawfully helping patients obtain abortions, a crime in Poland that carries a prison sentence of up to three years.
Prosecutors say that the doctor, Maria Kubisa (pictured above), provided women with abortion pills without checking whether doing so was justified under Poland’s strict abortion law. She denies the accusation and says the authorities are trying to “intimidate” her.
Prokuratura Regionalna w Szczecinie postawiła zarzuty ginekolożce Marii Kubisie. Podejrzewa ją o podawanie pięciu pacjentkom środków wczesnoporonnych bez sprawdzenia, czy są przesłanki do usunięcia ciąży.https://t.co/kubw9vJsO4
— tvn24 (@tvn24) November 25, 2023
Kubisa (who has waived her right to the anonymity granted to those facing charges) came to prominence in January this year when agents from the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) raided her private medical practice in the city of Szczecin.
They did so on the orders of prosecutors investigating the alleged aiding of abortion with the use of a pharmacological agent.
The officers seized the doctor’s medical files on thousands of patients dating back to 1996, returning them only two months later after patients had complained that their rights had been violated.
Patients of a gynaecologist whose records were seized during a raid on her medical practice as part of an investigation into the alleged aiding of abortion have announced that they will file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights https://t.co/IBiMirbh1K
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 4, 2023
At the time, Kubisa told news website OKO.press that she “does not sell any [abortion] pills and does not help with abortions” in any way in Poland. “Everything I do is legal.”
Indeed, she said that she had stopped treating pregnant patients in Poland after the 2020 constitutional court ruling that introduced a near-total ban on abortion by outlawing terminations in cases where foetuses are diagnosed with severe birth defects.
The doctor said that “her medical conscience won’t allow” her to tell women carrying such foetuses that they “have to carry this pregnancy to term”.
In an interview with German newspaper Die Welt, Kubisa said that she believes the Polish authorities “want to intimidate me” because she had been providing abortions to Polish patients at a clinic over the border in Germany, where she also works. Those procedures are legal under German law.
Prosecutors investigating the death of a pregnant woman that sparked protests against Poland’s near-total abortion ban have concluded it was unrelated to the abortion law.
She died in hospital after doctors waited for her foetus to die before removing it.https://t.co/jq7cwZsM0Q
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 16, 2023
However, prosecutors have now charged the doctor with helping five women terminate their pregnancies, reports local newspaper Kurier Szczeciński.
“It was established that Maria K[ubisa] in her doctor’s office sold patients an early-abortive drug and instructed them on how to take the pill so that the patient’s pregnancy could be terminated,” said prosecutors in a statement.
“During the investigation, it was found that situations occurred during medical visits in which Maria K[ubisa] did not conduct an interview or medical examination and did not prepare medical documentation,” they added. “She did not determine whether there were statutory grounds for terminating the pregnancy.”
Prosecutors said that the charges were based on witness statements as well as information found on the doctor’s mobile phone and in seized documents. Helping a woman terminate a pregnancy or inducing her to do so is illegal in Poland under a law introduced in 1997.
A women’s rights activist has been convicted of the crime of “helping terminate a pregnancy”.
She sent abortion pills to a woman who had sought help obtaining an abortion, but whose husband discovered them and reported the case to police https://t.co/aCloNjHAfP
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 14, 2023
The prosecutors emphasised that the women who received such drugs have nothing to fear because, while helping a woman obtain an illegal abortion is a criminal offence, the woman herself is not criminally liable.
Kubisa’s lawyer, Rafał Gawęcki, told TVN that his client was “surprised that the prosecutor’s office decided to bring charges”. He added that “the names of the people indicated in the decision to present charges are unfamiliar to her”.
“The [actual] victims are the patients,” said the lawyer. “It is their medical records and data that have been secured. Further actions are being taken by some patients.”
Earlier this year, a number of Kubisa’s patients announced that they would take legal action against the authorities over the seizure of their medical records. Her patients have also organised protests in support of their doctor.
One member of Poland's likely new ruling coalition, The Left, says polls show a majority in favour of abortion on demand.
In fact, they do not. And this issue is likely to be one of the hardest for the incoming government to resolve, writes @danieltilles1 https://t.co/4Nze9wwEC3
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 20, 2023
While Poland’s ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, in power since 2015, has been supportive of the tightening and strict enforcement of abortion laws, a new coalition of three opposition groups is set to take power next month.
They have pledged to undo the near-total abortion ban, and may go even further by introducing a more liberal law than previously existed.
One of the groups, The Left (Lewica), has also put forward legislation to end criminal sanctions against those who help women obtain abortions.
Bills to introduce abortion on demand and decriminalise helping women obtain abortions were proposed on the first day of the new parliament by The Left, which is part of the coalition likely to form Poland's next government https://t.co/44ePma36jo
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 14, 2023
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Main image credit: Krzysztof Hadrian / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
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.
