Main points

1

The Polish prosecutor’s office has discontinued proceedings against a gynecologist from a hospital in Oleśnica who was providing instructions in a Facebook group on how to perform a medication abortion. According to the prosecutor, the social harm of the woman’s act is negligible.

2

The Ordo Iuris Institute had filed a notice in this matter.

3

The prosecutor’s decision is a step toward the proliferation of illegal abortion and the normalization of this practice in Poland, whose law permits abortion only in very restricted circumstances.

Online abortion advice

The Prosecutor’s Office in Wrocław discontinued the proceedings in the case of a pro-abortion female doctor from Lower Silesia, in southwestern Poland. In August, the Ordo Iuris Institute filed a written report with the prosecutor’s office regarding a suspected crime by a person presenting herself as “Gizela Jakubowicz,” whose comment under a Facebook post suggested that she was a gynecologist. The suspected prohibited act consisted of providing assistance to a pregnant woman in an illegal abortion by giving instructions on how and with which drug to carry out a medication abortion, and offering assistance at the hospital where she worked in case of medical complications.

The comment was posted under a post in the closed group called “ML Wrocław/ Dolny Śląsk.” One of the group members posted an anonymous post that read, “I’m pregnant, which I absolutely cannot be right now. Please help. Could one of you examine me? Positive test.”

In response, a comment by a group member introducing herself as Gizela Jakubowicz appeared, reading: „Each of us can write herself a prescription for [drug name], the 2023 FIGO protocol is available online. Remember that performing an abortion on yourself is LEGAL in Poland and a woman is not punished. And if anything worries you during or after, come to our emergency department in Oleśnica. And tell us about it. No one here is going to make a big deal out of it, and it won’t surprise anyone either. If it’s a more advanced pregnancy and you’re Rh-negative, remember that after a miscarriage/abortion you need to be given immunoglobulin — Rhophylac 300 — you can also write yourself a prescription for it. Good luck.”

The contents of the commenter’s profile led Ordo Iuris attorneys to believe that the account owner is a gynecologist working at the County Hospital in Oleśnica who is known for her pro-abortion views. This is evidenced by the photos and posts on this profile and elsewhere on Facebook. Furthermore, in order to be added to the group in which this comment was posted, one must provide a medical license number, which further supports the assertion that the profile in question belongs to a real gynecologist.

The prosecutor’s office sees no problem.

Pursuant to Article 152 § 2 of the Polish Criminal Code, “whoever assists a pregnant woman in terminating a pregnancy in violation of the provisions of the Act, or induces her to do so, is punishable by imprisonment for up to three years.” Well-established judicial case law emphasizes that assistance encompasses any conduct that facilitates abortion, and thus also includes providing advice or information. In this case, the author of the post provided information on how to obtain abortifacients, offered guidance on their use, and offered help in the event of complications during an abortion. Activities carried out in this manner completely disregard the provisions of the Act on Family Planning, Protection of the Human Fetus, and the Conditions for the Permissibility of Termination of Pregnancy, in particular Article 4a thereof.

On November 4, the prosecutor discontinued the investigation, citing the negligible social harm of the act. In issuing such a decision, the prosecutor must have found that the act formally meets the statutory elements of a crime, but that, in the specific circumstances, its gravity is so slight that there is no need to conduct criminal proceedings. The assessment in this regard primarily includes the motivation and purpose of the act, the circumstances of its commission, the extent of the damage, the degree of infringement of the protected legal interest, and the offender’s conduct after the act.

Normalization of killing

In the Ordo Iuris Institute’s assessment, such conduct by the prosecution cannot be accepted. The prosecutor’s decision to discontinue proceedings in a case concerning an illegal abortion due to the act’s alleged negligible social harm is an admission of defeat by the state, but that’s not all. This is also an alarming sign that the state is beginning to shirk its role as the guarantor of the constitutional right to life, especially for the most defenseless. How can the ending of an unborn child’s life be described as an act of marginal significance for society? One can hardly imagine a more brutal example of pushing the boundaries.

When a prosecutor discontinues proceedings on the basis of this particular procedural ground, the message that reaches the public is always the same—”the case isn’t that important”—but can the state really afford such nonchalance about the most fundamental human right—the right to life? This is not the way to build a state governed by the rule of law, and law that exists only on paper is worthless. There is one law, and its foundation—the protection of human life from conception—cannot depend on individual interpretations, moods, or social pressure.

What’s worse, however, such decisions lead to the spread of abortion in secret, without public debate, showing that under the government of Donald Tusk, Poland is moving away from the protection of life and that instead of an honest discussion, we have a series of decisions that go against Polish law. We publicly discuss women’s rights, families, education, and taxes, yet we overlook the rights of the smallest among us, who cannot shout or protest. After all, it was precisely for them that the provisions on the protection of the human fetus and the permissibility of terminating pregnancy were created shortly after the fall of the communist regime in Poland, reinforcing the conviction that every human life has inviolable value.

The decision to dismiss the proceedings once again pushes the boundaries and constitutes another step toward normalizing prohibited practices, opening the door to arbitrariness in decisions made by judicial authorities. This is not what the justice system should look like, and the right to life cannot depend on who is conducting the proceedings and on their interpretation. And although in public debate phrases describing abortion as “a choice” or “a procedure” are increasingly common, the fact remains that abortion results in the death of a human being.  Human life is a paramount value, and when the state abandons clear principles, there is no room for the protection of the weak — there is only arbitrariness and chaos. If the state truly wants to protect life, it must do so consistently. Therefore, Ordo Iuris consistently takes action to protect human life and to stop the practice of abortion.

Advocate Magdalena Leszczyńska – lawyer at the Ordo Iuris Center for Litigation Intervention.

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Source of cover photo: iStock

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