Poland tells doctors: Ailing women have abortion rights
Source: AP
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s Health Ministry issued instructions Sunday to doctors confirming that it is legal to terminate a pregnancy when the woman’s health or life is in danger, a directive that comes amid apparent confusion over a new restriction to the country’s abortion law.
The document addressed to obstetricians comes in reaction to the hospital death of a 30-year-old mother whose 22-week pregnancy had medical problems. The woman died in September but her death became widely known this month. Doctors at the hospital in Pszczyna, in southern Poland, held off terminating her pregnancy despite the fact that her fetus lacked enough amniotic fluid to survive, her family and a lawyer say.
The doctors have been suspended and prosecutors are investigating.
Angered Poles held massive nationwide protests over the weekend, blaming the woman’s death on Poland’s restrictive abortion law. Women’s rights activists say it has chilling effect on doctors in this predominantly Roman Catholic nation.
Protestors gather outside Poland's Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, to protest against the restrictive abortion laws after a woman died of complications during her pregnancy. The protesters held portraits of the woman, 30-year-old Iza, who died in hospital from septic shock. Her family and a lawyer say her doctors did not terminate the pregnancy despite the fact that her fetus lacked enough amniotic fluid to survive. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-europe-health-religion-poland-2666941d1ff8026fe70b3930fa5db259
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