Lawyers from the Foundation for Women and Family Planning represented a young patient from Białystok in court before the Patient Rights Ombudsman, who in December 2021 was refused an abortion by the team of the University Clinical Hospital.
The then 26-year-old woman had a full record of the diagnosis of a severe, irreversible fetal defect: acrania. The pregnant woman also had two medical certificates stating that continuing the pregnancy endangered her mental health.
The authorities of the facility supported their decision with the position of the well-known, fundamentalist organization Ordo Iuris, which calls for a total ban on abortion and wants to punish women for undergoing termination of pregnancy. “The position, from our perspective, is completely non-medical and inconsistent with applicable law” – emphasize the activists.
Scandalous decision of the hospital. “Depression is not dangerous for pregnant women”
The memo justifying the refusal to perform an abortion also included a record that read: “Depression is not dangerous for a pregnant woman.”
The woman decided to seek help from FEDER. Advocate Kamila Ferenc, who acted as the patient’s attorney, filed a complaint on her behalf against the decision of the hospital authorities and conducted proceedings before the Patient Rights Ombudsman.
Health, the threat of which may constitute a premise for legal termination of pregnancy, should also be understood as the mental health of a pregnant woman (the legislator does not directly limit the possibility of termination of pregnancy only to cases where it poses a threat to the woman’s physical health)
– was written in the spokesman’s decision.
An important victory for FEDERA on abortion. “Today there are no more doubts”
Lawyers emphasize that this decision is a milestone. “(…) Women’s well-being is above ideology, mental health is an equal part of it, and forced continuation of pregnancy is mental torture” – they point out.
Today there is no doubt: the refusal to terminate the pregnancy, despite the threat to the patient’s mental health identified by the psychiatrist, is a violation of the law
– write the activists in a press release sent to our editorial office. They point out that forcing anyone to carry a pregnancy to term can have catastrophic consequences. It can lead to e.g. to depression, adjustment disorders, post-traumatic stress and suicidal ideation.’
“We can only imagine how difficult the mental state of a woman is when she finds out about a serious genetic defect in the fetus” – they note.
From now on, every patient who has a certificate from a psychiatric specialist that further pregnancy threatens her mental health may report to a public hospital and refer to the decision of the Patient Rights Ombudsman of March 13, 2023, ref. no. RzPP-DPR-WPZ.431.362.2021.PS. The anonymized decision can be downloaded from the federa.org.pl website.
– we read. FEDERA emphasizes that this position is a temporary solution, because the main goal is the complete decriminalization of abortion and the liberalization of abortion law.
Source: https://federa.org.pl.
Source: Gazeta
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