Polish court dismisses Kaczynski’s lawsuit against Tusk for “serial killers of women” comment

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A court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński against Prime Minister Donald Tusk for calling the former PiS government “serial killers of women” due to the tightening of abortion laws.

The judge found that Tusk’s comment did not specifically refer to Kaczyński. But he also argued that, as the leader of the party that had pushed for a near-total abortion ban, Kaczyński “bears moral responsibility for tragedies” that occurred as a result.

The dispute dates back to June 2023, when Tusk, then an opposition leader, gave a speech at a rally of his Civic Coalition (KO) party in the wake of news that a pregnant woman named Dorota had died in hospital from sepsis, reportedly after doctors had failed to perform an abortion.

It was one of a number of cases that women’s rights activists and the then-opposition blamed on a near-total abortion ban introduced under the PiS government in January 2021, which barred terminations of pregnancies when a defect was diagnosed in the foetus.

“Today, those in power are serial killers of women,” said Tusk in his speech. “They are responsible for the deaths of these women; it is on their heads – Mr Kaczyński, on your head – that these tragedies, these deaths and this mourning occur.”

Kaczyński was at the time, and remains, the leader of the national-conservative PiS party, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023. The PiS government did not itself directly introduce the near-total abortion ban, which was implemented by a ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) issued in October 2020.

However, the TK ruling was made in response to a request by 119 MPs, most of them from PiS. Meanwhile, the TK itself was seen as being largely under PiS control, filled with judges aligned with the party, including a chief justice who was a close personal associate of Kaczyński.

Kaczyński himself had strongly advocated banning abortions due to birth defects, saying he would “strive to ensure that even very difficult pregnancies, when the child is condemned to death, is severely deformed, will end in birth, so that the child can be christened, buried, given a name”.

In response to Tusk’s “serial killers” speech, Kaczyński sued him for defamation, demanding that he apologise and pay 10,000 zloty for the charitable cause of helping refugees from Ukraine.

However, on Wednesday this week, the district court in Warsaw dismissed Kaczyński’s claim and ordered him to pay 900 zloty in legal costs for Tusk.

The judge, Tomasz Jaskłowski, noted that Tusk’s comments were made in the context of a political campaign when the abortion law was a key, contested topic. He also found that Tusk’s mention of “serial killers” did not refer directly to Kaczyński.

Jaskłowski added, however, that there were grounds to argue that “responsibility for these tragedies, for these deaths [of pregnant women], for these mournings falls on the head of the political leader who was behind the change in these [abortion] regulations”.

As such, “Mr Jarosław Kaczyński…bears moral responsibility for these tragedies”, the judge declared, quoted by Polsat News.

The TK’s abortion ruling prompted the largest protests Poland has since the fall of communism. Critics blame it for the deaths of pregnant women because the near-total ban made doctors more reluctant to carry out abortions.

However, conservative groups point out that the law still allows terminations to be performed in cases where the pregnancy threatens the mother’s health or life. They argue, therefore, that such deaths are the result of medical malpractice.

In March this year, an appeals court upheld prison sentences handed down last year to two doctors for their negligence in treating a pregnant woman who died in 2021 in hospital under their care.

Last year, meanwhile, prosecutors charged three doctors in relation to the 2023 death of the woman that prompted Tusk’s remarks.

At the October 2023 elections, PiS was ousted from power by a coalition of parties led by Tusk, which took office in December of that year.

However, while the new government pledged to liberalise the abortion law, it has so far failed to do so amid disagreements between more conservative and liberal elements over what form the new law should take. Tusk admitted in 2024 that abortion reform was impossible.

However, his government did publish new guidelines for when and how abortions can be carried out, with the aim of ensuring that doctors and prosecutors “take the women’s side” when making decisions on the issue.

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: KPRM (under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.