Conservative group checks if Ukrainian refugees are receiving abortions at Polish hospitals

An ultraconservative group in Poland, Ordo Iuris, has been “auditing” hospitals to determine whether or not they’re offering abortions to refugees from Ukraine and, in that case, whether or not they’re taking the required authorized steps to “confirm if the lady is telling the reality that she was raped”.

“Though some Ukrainian girls fell sufferer to [rape], which is in fact a tragedy and requires sympathy, I’m additionally satisfied that there are lots of girls who escaped Ukraine and easily need an abortion,” Katarzyna Gęsiak, director of Ordo Iuris’s centre for medical regulation and bioethics, informed Wirtualna Polska.

Poland has a few of Europe’s strictest abortion legal guidelines, with terminations solely permitted in two cases: the place the being pregnant threatens the mom’s life or well being, or if it outcomes from a legal act (comparable to rape or incest).

Within the latter case, an opinion from prosecutors that the being pregnant is prone to have resulted from a legal act is important. Such abortions are extraordinarily uncommon: in 2020, out of 1,076 authorized abortions in Poland, solely two have been carried out on this foundation.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland has been the first vacation spot for refugees, with over three million individuals crossing its border, round 95% of them girls and kids.

NGOs have raised concern that a few of these girls and women, who might have been victims of sexual violence, will discover it troublesome or inconceivable to acquire an abortion in Poland.

Final week, the UN refugee company warned that Poland’s insurance policies on this space “don’t meet worldwide requirements” and stated that it could increase such points – together with entry to abortion – with the Polish authorities.

Whereas girls’s rights teams in Poland have been making an attempt to help Ukrainian girls looking for abortions, Ordo Iuris – an influential organisation that has lengthy campaigned for more durable abortion legal guidelines – has sought to make sure that the regulation is upheld.

In a letter obtained by Wirtualna Polska, Ordo Iuris wrote to a hospital asking for info on what number of abortions it carried out between 1 February and 11 Might because of the being pregnant ensuing from a legal act; what number of of these have been for Polish or overseas residents; and whether or not the required prosecutor’s opinion was supplied.

When contacted by the information portal, Ordo Iuris confirmed it has carried out related “audits” at different hospitals. “We monitor the dimensions of abortion once in a while,” stated Gęsiak.

“We’re conscious of what the pro-abortion teams are at present doing,” she continued. “They place a robust emphasis on particular therapy of Ukrainian girls on the subject of the rape premise [for abortion].”

However “Polish regulation is what it’s” and “abortion is abortion”, added Gęsiak. “It doesn’t matter what nation an individual comes from.”

“With out [requiring] a prosecutor’s opinion it could be abortion on demand, with out verifying if the lady is telling the reality that she was raped,” she warned. “Some individuals will at all times wish to benefit from a given state of affairs.”

Ordo Iuris has turn into a distinguished and influential organisation in the course of the rule of Poland’s present national-conservative Regulation and Justice (PiS) authorities. Final yr it launched a brand new college in Warsaw with the endorsement of the schooling and tradition ministers.

The organisation has additionally been a driving power behind plenty of campaigns which have gained wider traction. In addition to pushing for more durable abortion legal guidelines, Ordo Iuris has additionally led the struggle towards what it (in addition to PiS and elements of the Catholic church) name “LGBT ideology”.

Important picture credit score: Patryk Ogorzalek / Agencja Wyborcza.pl