Despite Pro-Abortion Protests in Poland After 2021 Maternal Death, Medical Errors—Not Laws—Were to Blame; Poland Maintains One of the Lowest Maternal Mortality Rates

On July 17, 2025, a first instance court handed down a verdict (not yet final) in the case of three doctors who provided medical care to Izabela at the District Hospital in Pszczyna when she died in 2021, while 22 weeks pregnant. Let us recall that the patient was admitted to the hospital in the early stages of pregnancy after her water broke unexpectedly. According to available media reports on the circumstances of the patient’s stay in the hospital, the patient complained about the doctors’ lack of interest in her deteriorating health, and thus about inadequate medical care, which ultimately led to the woman’s death as a result of septic shock. This tragic event unfortunately became fodder for pro-abortion activists and politicians, who then organized and promoted demonstrations with slogans targeting the legal protection of unborn children in Poland. However, last week’s ruling by the District Court in Pszczyna confirms that the patient died as a result of errors and negligence on the part of doctors who performed their work in violation of applicable regulations. 

The death of Izabela and the law

In many statements by left-wing and pro-abortion politicians and activists, there were clear accusations against the law in force at the time, specifically the wording of Article 4a(1) of the 1993 Act on Family Planning, Protection of the Human Fetus and Conditions for the Admissibility of Pregnancy Termination (the Family Planning Act), established by the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling of October 22, 2020 (ref. no. K 1/20). 

In this judgment, the Tribunal found that Article 4a(1)(2) of the Family Planning Act, which allowed termination of pregnancy on the grounds of suspected illness or defect of the child, was unconstitutional. Less than a year after the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling, Izabela was admitted to a hospital in Pszczyna, and the doctors did not take the measures required in that situation to save the woman’s life. The patient died, and abortion activists quickly exploited this tragedy to spread misinformation that the Constitutional Tribunal’s 2020 judgment was responsible for the patient’s death. 

However, the 2020 ruling by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal did not concern situations where the life of a pregnant patient is at risk. Such cases are governed by Article 4a(1)(1) of the Family Planning Act (whose wording has remained unchanged before and after the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling of 2020), and not by Article 4a(1)(2) of the Family Planning Act, which was repealed by the Constitutional Tribunal. 

The law and the conduct of doctors in Pszczyna

Therefore, in a situation where Izabela’s life (and that of any other patient) was at risk, doctors could terminate the pregnancy on the basis of Article 4a(1)(1) of the Family Planning Act, which was in force at the time and remains in force today. The provision repealed by the Constitutional Tribunal in 2020 was not applicable in this case because it concerned other situations.  

What is more, the doctors caring for Izabela not only had a legal basis for terminating the pregnancy (if, according to medical knowledge, it was necessary – Article 6(1) of the Code of Medical Ethics), but above all, on the basis of other generally applicable provisions, they were obliged to take measures to save the patient’s life and health. I am referring in particular to Article 4 of the Polish Act of December 5, 1996, on the professions of physician and dentist (A doctor is obliged to practice their profession in accordance with current medical knowledge, the methods and means of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases available to them, in accordance with the principles of professional ethics and with due diligence) and the relevant provisions of the Code of Medical Ethics to which it refers, for example: 

• Article 2(1) of the Code of Medical Ethics (The vocation of a doctor is to protect human life and health, prevent disease, treat the sick and alleviate suffering; a doctor may not use his or her medical knowledge and skills in activities contrary to this vocation), 
• Article 2(2) of the Code of Medical Ethics (The highest ethical imperative of a doctor is the good of the patient – salus aegroti suprema lex esto. Market mechanisms, social pressures and administrative requirements do not release a doctor from compliance with this principle), 
• Article 7 of the Code of Medical Ethics (In particularly justified cases, a doctor may refuse or withdraw from providing care to a patient, except in cases where a delay in providing such care could endanger the patient’s life or cause a significant deterioration in the patient’s health in a short period of time), 
• Article 8 of the Code of Medical Ethics (A doctor shall carry out and document diagnostic, therapeutic, or preventive procedures with due diligence, in accordance with current medical knowledge, devoting the necessary time to this). 

Taking the necessary measures to save Izabela’s life (including proper diagnosis and monitoring of the patient’s health, as well as—if necessary according to medical knowledge—terminating the pregnancy) would therefore have been appropriate behavior on the part of the doctors, in accordance with applicable law and medical practice. 

That said, in Polish law, terminating a pregnancy is not the same as performing an abortion.

The difference is significant, as the adoption of certain legal exceptions to Poland’s existing constitutional principle of the protection of human life (confirmed by numerous rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal since 1997) means that in situations where saving the child’s life is possible, doctors are legally obliged to terminate the pregnancy in such a way that the child is born alive, and then provide the necessary medical assistance. This is explained in detail in a legal analysis available here (in Polish).

The essence of the judgment of the District Court in Pszczyna

The court of first instance found the doctors guilty of the acts they were accused of (exposing the patient to direct danger of loss of life – Article 160 § 2 of the Act of 6 June 1997 (the Penal Code) and in the case of the doctor on duty at the time – also in connection with Article 155 of the Penal Code, i.e. unintentional causing of death). The essence of the judgment can therefore be summarized as follows: in the case of Izabela, the doctors failed to fulfill their obligations, resulting from the professional (medical) standards applicable to them. In other words, the doctors committed medical malpractice (a medical error), which is not defined in law, but which the Polish Supreme Court defined as early as 1955 as “an act (omission) of a doctor in the field of diagnosis and therapy, inconsistent with medical science within the scope available to a doctor” (Supreme Court ruling of April 1, 1955, ref. IV CR 39/54). Criminal liability (e.g., under Articles 160 and 155 of the Polish Penal Code) is one of the possible consequences of committing a medical error, depending on the effects of the error. 

To sum up, it is essential to emphasize that the court’s finding of guilt against the doctors stems from their actions being contrary to the law and other established standards of medical practice. This completely contradicts the narrative repeated by left-wing circles, which blames the legal situation in force after 2020 for Izabela’s death. If this were the case, the court would simply have found no grounds for a conviction.  

Where abortion is banned, women are safe

The instrumental use by pro-abortion circles of the tragedy that took place in a hospital in Pszczyna had essentially one goal: to convince the public that the ban on killing unborn children on the basis of suspected defects or diseases, introduced by the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling of 2020 (concerning Article 4a(1)(2) of the Family Planning Act) poses a threat to women’s lives. 

This is an absurd and illogical claim, if only because, as we have shown, the amendment to the Family Planning Act made by the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling in case K 1/20 does not refer at all to situations where women’s lives are at risk. The doctors were found guilty because they did not comply with the law, not because the law was wrong. It should be emphasized here that this model of fighting for the implementation of abortion activists’ demands has previously been successfully used, unfortunately in Ireland, where it ultimately led to the widespread legalization of abortion, including abortion on demand, thus in line with the demands of pro-abortion activists. It is worth familiarizing oneself with the mechanism of action of abortion organizations, described in detail in the Ordo Iuris report “The use of medical errors to change abortion law in Ireland. Conclusions for Poland” (in Polish).

Further confirmation of the falsehood of the narrative of abortion activists and left-wing politicians who support them is the fact that Poland is among the countries with the lowest maternal mortality rates. 

According to the 2023 “Health at a Glance” report of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, currently comprising 38 highly developed countries), the average maternal mortality rate in OECD countries was 10.9 per 100,000 births in 2020, and in Poland it was 2.0 per 100,000 births. These data show that Poland, with its current laws protecting unborn life, guarantees women an incomparably higher level of maternal safety (i.e., according to the report, during pregnancy, childbirth, and 42 days after childbirth) than countries where abortion is widely practiced, even though it is women’s safety that pro-abortion activists repeatedly invoke when chanting their slogans.

For example, two European countries where the highest number of abortions are performed legally (over 200,000 per year), namely France (with abortion on demand up to 14 weeks of pregnancy) and the United Kingdom (with very easy access to abortion on grounds of threat to the mother’s mental health up to 24 weeks of pregnancy), have average maternal mortality rates of 7.9 and 9.8, respectively. 

What is more, in Ireland—where abortion on demand up to 12 weeks of pregnancy was introduced in 2018—the maternal mortality rate has not improved; on the contrary, it has worsened.

According to the 2021 national report of the Irish Maternity Indicator System, the average maternal mortality rate in Ireland was 6.5 in 2013-2015, 6.89 in 2018-2020, and 6.92 in 2019-2021. Furthermore, the latest report Maternal Death Enquiry Ireland, from October 2024, shows that between 2020 and 2022, this rate reached 8.3 deaths per 100,000 mothers!

Thus, another argument of the pro-abortion community—that laws protecting unborn life and restricting abortion threaten the lives of mothers—collapses when confronted with the facts.

Summary

The conviction of the doctors who provided medical care to Izabela at the hospital in Pszczyna, Poland, has once again activated left-wing circles, which continue to spread false claims about the alleged causes of Izabela’s death and their alleged connection to the change in abortion law in Poland as a result of the 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling. The words of Equality Minister Katarzyna Kotula in a post published just after the verdict on X are striking: “An important court ruling, although it is worth recalling what may have led to the doctors’ decision. The Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling (…).” This clearly demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the essence of the first instance court’s ruling or a biased exploitation of the tragedy of Izabela and her family. The court in Pszczyna has just confirmed what was already known, namely that the fatal decisions of the doctors were in no way based on the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling, which prohibited the killing in Poland of children in the prenatal stage of development who have been diagnosed with an incurable disease or disability. 

Katarzyna Gęsiak, director of the Ordo Iuris Center for Medical Law and Bioethics