Police harassment of a girl for taking an abortion pill is sparking waves of anger and protests in Poland. The opposition leader, Donald Tusk, has called a march to defend women’s rights against the persecution of the nationalist government.
Joanna’s case was revealed in a report by the independent television channel TVN24. At the end of April, the young woman from Krakow called her psychiatrist to confide in her about her bad state of mind after having taken an abortion pill that she had procured herself to get rid of a pregnancy that was damaging her physical and mental health. As soon as she hung up, the psychiatrist informed the police, who immediately showed up at Joanna’s house along with an ambulance to take her to a clinic. “The policemen were asking me if she had an abortion and they forced me to go to the clinic,” Joanna said.
Once at the clinic, four police officers formed a cordon around the woman, took her personal computer from her bag and tried to seize her mobile phone. Refusing the intervention of medical personnel to help the woman, who tried to get the police to leave her in her care, they entered a cabinet. There two policewomen forced Joanna to undress, do squats and cough.
“It was tremendous, they humiliated me, they insulted me, they violated my privacy, they treated me like a criminal,” Joanna repeats in an interview with the independent newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
Faced with the protests of the doctors, the police officers took her to another gynecological clinic in Kraków, where more policemen were already waiting to question her further. There she finally confiscated her cell phone.
Immediately afterwards, the woman was released but the local prosecutor’s office launched an investigation for “incitement and assistance” to suicide and an illegal abortion.
“The behavior of the police was a scandal,” says Kamila Ferenc, a lawyer. It was mistreatment and torment. We are going to sue the police.
The lawyer explains that, despite draconian anti-abortion legislation established under the current nationalist government, taking an abortion pill is legal in Poland and a woman who wishes to abort alone cannot be prosecuted that way.
Faced with the scandal raised in the independent media (and silenced for now by the public and pro-government media) the police began to maneuver to justify their conduct.
At first, the police declared that they had gone to the woman’s house warned of an “illegal abortion” and a possible “suicide attempt” and revealed that the woman was in psychiatric therapy, “disturbed and drunk”, and that she was “screaming”.
But when the commotion grew, the police withdrew the paragraphs about the woman’s agitation and intoxication, as well as about her therapy, silencing her suspicion of illegal abortion to affirm that the policemen had come to “save the woman from a possible suicide attempt”, alarmed as they were that she had ingested a “pill of unknown origin”. The police justify the requisition of the computer and mobile phone because they wanted to “establish the origin of the medicine ingested.”
Joanna categorically denies that she had confessed to suicidal thoughts to her psychiatrist and that the police had any concern for her life and health. “I spoke to the doctor about my despondency and restlessness and not at all that he wanted to attempt my life. And the police were only interested in abortion. It was like an anti-abortion raid,” she explained.
In turn, the Supreme Chamber of doctors has launched an internal file to determine if the psychiatrist had violated the obligation to keep medical secrecy by reporting the woman to the police.
The political storm that the case has raised is of capital dimensions. The entire opposition has demanded the immediate resignation of the commander-in-chief of the police.
“The government has created an atmosphere of inquisitorial persecution against women in Poland,” says Liberal MP Katarzyna Lubnauer. “Women fear getting pregnant and rightly so. It is the consequence of the harassing actions by the pro-life organizations and the change in anti-abortion legislation, ”she adds. “The police have become the armed wing of the government,” say spokesmen for the left.
Liberal opposition leader Donald Tusk has been the most radical. “The attack by the police and the prosecutor’s office against a woman who was seeking protection and help is only a beginning, Tusk said Wednesday at a press conference. “Poland, under this government, suffers the oppression of an obsessive ideology, aggression and constant intervention of the state apparatus. Joanna’s courage shows that a brave person can make a difference.
Tusk has called for a “million person march” in defense of democracy, freedom and women’s rights. The demonstration is scheduled for October 1 in Warsaw to coincide with the campaign for the parliamentary elections, still without a date but scheduled for next autumn.
“No one should be defenseless before power,” Tusk cried. “Do you want to vote for PiS? (acronym for the government party Law and Justice). Then tell it, you coward, to your wife, your girlfriend or your daughter!” he concluded.
