On Wednesday, 22 June, at around 10:50 p.m., the first reading in the Sejm of the citizens' bill on safe termination of pregnancy and other reproductive rights took place. The bill was submitted to the Sejm by the legislative initiative committee “Legal Abortion Without Compromises”.
Abortion was, is and will be! – shouted bolesławiec resident Kinga Gęsicka-Biały in the Sejm, although a Sejm guard ordered her not to show her emotions.
It is difficult, however, to remain stoically calm when the lives and health of all women in Poland are at stake, as well as the fight for safe, legal abortion and conscious motherhood.
How women are treated in the Sejm...
Kinga's first attempt to enter the Sejm with a pass was unsuccessful. Kinga was preparing to attend the reading of the bill, which had been announced for 6:00 p.m., but when she had already entered the Sejm grounds, it turned out that the reading time had been changed to 9:00 p.m. and Kinga was removed from the Sejm, with officials saying that there was no point in her waiting several hours in the gallery, which her pass allowed her to enter. The women who were not turned back were held locked in the cloakroom until the bill was read.
Kinga left and waited with the rest of the women from the Women's Strike outside the Sejm, and before 9:00 p.m. she lined up to enter again. Her pass was then changed, and it turned out that she could enter only the Civic Platform club and watch the reading there on a screen.
“At the entrance, they told me to take off my green pro-abortion scarf; the girls turned their T-shirts inside out because they were not allowed to enter with Women's Strike and Legal Abortion symbols,” says Kinga. “I only entered the gallery the next day for the vote, together with two friends. They told us to take the farthest possible seats; we were assigned places in the last row. I asked the guards watching over us what the consequences would be if I shouted something from the gallery, and I learned that I could not express my emotions in that place. Despite this warning, as I was leaving, I stood up and shouted: Abortion was, is and will be, always and everywhere. Then the entire opposition stood up and began applauding. And they did nothing to me,” Kinga recalls.
Meeting drunk MPs and a visit to the Sejm restaurant with shocking prices
On the first day, as Kinga was entering the Sejm, she passed a group of drunk MPs. No one important was there, but their elegant attire and high level of intoxication shocked her.
The girls from the Women's Strike visited the famous Sejm restaurant. They were surprised by the low prices.
“Beer for 8 zlotys in Warsaw,” says Kinga. “In a restaurant in the city, it costs at least 16 zlotys. A meal for two consisting of a salad with caramelized pear and cod with potatoes, plus two beers, cost 60 zlotys. A less sophisticated dish—liver and potatoes with coleslaw—cost 15 zlotys,” says Kinga.
It is possible that the 265 MPs who rejected the bill met in this restaurant to celebrate the hell women endure in Poland, because they have access to very cheap alcohol there, paid for with our taxes.
In brief, the “Legal Abortion Without Compromises” bill provides for:
- legal abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy
- strict deadlines for providing the service of terminating a pregnancy
- sanctions for healthcare providers for unjustified refusal or failure to provide it
- an obligation for hospital directors to hire subcontractors if all doctors working at the facility refuse to perform an abortion on grounds of conscientious objection
- decriminalization of abortion, that is, repeal of criminal provisions imposing liability on doctors and third parties for performing abortions or helping with abortions in violation of the provisions of the current restrictive anti-abortion law
- simplification and acceleration of the procedure for a patient to appeal a doctor's refusal/opinion (24 hours for the Medical Commission to consider an objection concerning a refusal of abortion)
- expansion of the prenatal screening program to include the PAPP-A test (which detects fetal abnormalities in 95–98% of cases) and ßhCG (a reference-range test) for all pregnant patients.