The Polish ruling party’s leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, gave an interview to Wprost magazine titled “Even a mildly intelligent person can organize an abortion abroad” (Olczyk and Miziołek 2021a). In the interview he openly points to the possibility of going abroad to obtain an abortion as an easy way of circumventing the abortion ban. In the same interview, Kaczyński denies that Poland in fact has an “abortion ban”, or that the recent legal changes (eliminating embryopatological indications for legal abortion effective January 2021) in any way “threaten the interests of women” (Olczyk and Miziołek 2021b). Kaczyński also mentions that women in Germany need “various certificates” in order to access abortion, making a parallel between German and Polish regulations, despite the latter being one of the most restrictive in the world.
By citing the ease of organizing an abortion abroad, the party leader, usually a skilled strategist, angered many environments. Last autumn Polish women have organized protests of unprecedented scale against further criminalization of abortion, which was passed regardless, by way of a Constitutional Tribunal ruling. Kaczyński’s statement can easily be read as patronizing: the leader suggested, that a total ban is easy to circumvent, therefore there is no cause for social discontent. This suggestion, best described as gaslighting, did not appease the public. Some pointed out that not everyone can afford to travel abroad, and leave their families, jobs and responsibilities to seek medical care in a foreign country, especially during the pandemic. In the context of expanding criminalization, it was also strange for a politician to ensure citizens that they can escape the law by leaving the country. This statement amounted to admission that abortion law is a dead letter law: abortion is forbidden, yet we all know women have it, only not in Poland.
On the other side of the political spectrum, a fundamentalist think-tank “Ordo Iuris”, rooted in the Tradition Family Property network, responded by formulating a new goal: putting an absolute stop to abortion migration and at-home abortion (Waloch 2021; Kwaśniewski 2021). This ambitious declaration came shortly after the think tank’s previous postulates were realized (embryopathological indications removed as grounds for legal abortion). It’s a sign that the anti-choice movement, in which Ordo Iuris plays an important role, will always formulate new, further reaching goals. It is therefore a new kind of actor on the Polish political scene, that makes the Catholic Church’s hierarchy look moderate in comparison. The ruling party, accustomed to a peaceful co-existence with the Catholic Church hierarchy, finds itself in a new, inconvenient situation: Ordo Iuris raises postulates based on ideas of “tradition” and “Christianity”; it is hard for Law and Justice to reject their postulates, as they base their program on similar ideas. On the other hand, the changes demanded by Ordo Iuris, particularly further tightening the abortion ban, are not popular among the majority of the citizens. The political struggle around embryopathological indications in the autumn of 2020 brought about political protests of unprecedented scale, and cost the ruling party about 9 points in the polls. The new, fundamentalist political force in the Polish political scene is forcing the ruling party’s hand, and drawing more attention to a controversial topic.
The third, maybe unintended result the Wprost interview is that abortion tourism is becoming even more visible, present in the public debate. The interview is one of the first official statements in which a Polish member of the Parliament acknowledges abortion tourism and its place in maintaining the abortion ban. Without the possibilities of circumventing abortion criminalization, it could not be sustained. The social reality of abortion criminalization rests on simultaneous stigmatization and accessibility of abortion. Accessing abortion is harder in Poland, than in countries, where is not criminalized, meaning it costs women more time, money and effort to overcome stigmatization and find an acceptable solution. Nevertheless, criminalization does not make abortion impossible, and therefore the legal fiction can be maintained. This arrangement allowed the government, the Church and the society maintain a delicate equilibrium between public condemnation of abortion on the symbolic level, and the clandestine, privatized, matter-of-fact practice of abortion in the reproductive lives of women in Poland. The recent events are marked by intensified efforts to unmask that unspoken status quo, and change the place of abortion in the Polish public life.
Article by Dr. Agata Chełstowska
Kwaśniewski, Jerzy. Newsletter. 2021. “Zatrzymujemy Promocję Przestępczości Aborcyjnej (Newsletter Ordo Iuris),” May 25, 2021. kontakt@ordoiuris.pl.
Olczyk, Eliza, and Joanna Miziołek. 2021a. “Jarosław Kaczyński Dla „Wprost”: Każdy Średnio Rozgarnięty Człowiek Może Załatwić Aborcję Za Granicą.” Wprost, May. https://www.wprost.pl/kraj/10449780/jaroslaw-kaczynski-dla-wprost-kazdy-moze-zalatwic-aborcje-za-granica.html.
———. 2021b. “Jarosław Kaczyński Dla „Wprost”: Każdy Średnio Rozgarnięty Człowiek Może Załatwić Aborcję Za Granicą.” Wprost, May. https://www.wprost.pl/kraj/10449780/jaroslaw-kaczynski-dla-wprost-kazdy-moze-zalatwic-aborcje-za-granica.html.
Waloch, Natalia. 2021. “Koniec z Aborcją Polek Za Granicą Oraz w Domu, Koniec z Pigułką ‘Dzień Po’. Ordo Iuris Szykuje Blitzkrieg Nowych Przepisów.” Wysokie Obcasy, April 25, 2021. https://www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-obcasy/7,163229,27125283,koniec-z-aborcja-polek-za-granica-oraz-w-domu-koniec-z-pigulka.html.
