There is no law that can force a father to donate a kidney. However, a woman may be forced to give up her uterus

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Aga Kozak: Did it surprise you that the Grand Press award for the reportage book of the year – and the readers ‘and readers’ award – was won by your “Abortion jest”?

Katarzyna Wężyk, journalist, reporter, writer *: Well, for a year now, the state and ultra-conservative organizations have done everything to “advertise” my book – and this by making further attempts to tighten the anti-abortion law, and this by allowing a patient to die in the delivery room. It certainly has not lost its relevance, which certainly did the book well, but unfortunately it did worse for all of us. It is also the first book in Poland that combines the history of abortion with giving the floor to women who have done it. I hope to be an argument in the debate.

When did you finish writing it?

Literally after the publication of the judgment, at the end of January 2020. She left on March 10.

Since then, so many “updates” have happened – for example the tragic death of Izabela from Pszczyna. Did you hope this death would change something? As it happened in Ireland after Savita Halappanavar’s death?

Savita died in 2012 and Ireland voted its law in 2018, so unfortunately you also have to be prepared for a longer march.

But also note that the Polish public debate has changed tremendously over the last year. There is a struggle to shift the abortion “Overton’s window”, ie views that fit into the political mainstream. And not by a few centimeters – both sides of the dispute are pulling very strongly towards each other.

After all, for 27 years our Overton window housed this unfortunate “abortion compromise” of 1993, and everyone – ALL agreed that it was the best possible one, that it protects us from religious war, from “radicalism on the left” and “radicalism on the left”. right “.

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And now?

In the parliamentary debate on the draft “Stop abortion” it was clear that PiS wants this verdict to be such a new “common sense” center. They rejected – as the extreme on the right – punishing women with life imprisonment for abortion, but they want the unacceptable extreme on the left to be abortion because of a fetal defect they call eugenic abortion.

In turn, the postulates of the Women’s Strike included the right to abortion in the form of a blank page, i.e. without any restrictions, as in Canada.

And this is also moving the Overton window – because if the blank page is the extreme on the left, then the sensible center will be an abortion without giving reasons until the 12th week. And this is a solution from the left-backed law “Abortion without compromise”. A similar proposal was also proposed by the Civic Coalition, previously the main guardian of the 1993 law. However, she added the reservation that abortion would be available “under special conditions”, such as a difficult life situation or a threat to mental health. It is not known who would judge whether the situation of a woman is quite difficult, according to what criteria and whether a priest would be in the panel of experts. In any case, the PO continues to believe that Polish women are not competent enough to judge for themselves whether this is a good time for motherhood – but okay, it is a step in the right direction.

In any case, we still have to wait two years for elections. After them we will see what wins as a “sensible center”. It will not be a blank sheet, but maybe at least European standards.

A few women in your book who describe their experience of abortion or accompanying others in abortions mention this white card pointing to the fact that only such a solution could bring about this enormous fear, stress, guilt, but also fear of the consequences of the state whose are experiencing. One of the girls you describe was afraid to go to the doctor so that they would not enter her in the “pregnancy register”, which did not exist in the media at that time.

This is a feeling of great honor by the state, which is justified by the atmosphere that has been built up over 30 years around abortion.

We should remember, however, that Polish women, according to the law still in force, are not punished for their own abortion.

And of course, the doctor’s disapproval or even a summons to the prosecutor’s office, and there were such cases, are not pleasant. But then you can say “Yes, I terminated my pregnancy and what are you going to do to me?” Not everyone has the strength, courage and willingness to do it, which is understandable, but this is exactly what girls from the Abortion Dream Team do.

It is similar in Healthcare.

Doctors believe that they have to wait for the termination of pregnancy until the heart of the fetus stops beating – they absolutely do not have to, it is not written anywhere. Just as there is no written “direct threat to life” – no, for a legal abortion, “threat to life and health” is enough. It is doctors who interpret the law more severely than it implies. with us, yes, not otherwise …

… in the context of shame, sin, murder …

… Something absolutely evil, the worst in the world, makes both Polish women feel honored and doctors. But doctors have the power, and, as I show in my book, they use it, making the law even more restrictive in practice.

Which of the stories told by you are especially memorable?

I tried to show abortion as a normal experience – after all, statistically, one in four women will be interrupted in their lives.

The reasons for my characters were various: because he was not that guy, because she never wanted to have children, because she had as many children as she wanted, because she had no means. These are stories about a problem to be solved: you had to get money, go abroad, order pills, get stressed if they will come, and then if they will work. And the relief is over. Termination of pregnancy was much more difficult for women who underwent the Polish health care system. They were pregnant with a lethal defect and still had to – for an abortion that they were entitled to by law – to ask, beg, or even use the help of Federa, lawyer, before they got it. In hospitals they heard “no, because no”, “we don’t have abortions”, “you can search on the Internet”.

One of my interlocutors cried out of anger and humiliation: “they treated me like shit,” she said.

And that was not one incident.

No, these stories spilled out on social media after last year’s sentence and after the death of Izabela from Pszczyna. Doctors who wait for the dead fetus to be naturally removed because they will still be accused of having an abortion.

One woman described how she was connected to IV drips for several weeks, with her legs up, and no one told her that her fetus had a lethal defect, because what for.

It’s about treating women as objects, like incomplete people, like, well, incubators. It makes me very angry.

It is symptomatic of our culture and system: abortion shows the attitude of society or power to women. We do not care for the family in the sense that we care for already born children and kindergartens for them, but we will force women to maintain a sick pregnancy.

The attitude to abortion is a test of equality.

The man has full body autonomy, the woman does not. There is no law, please note, that can force a father to donate a kidney to a child, even if the child dies without a transplant, and one can live without a kidney.

We may consider that father immoral and evil, but it is his decision. However, you can force a woman to give up her uterus for nine months. And yet pregnancy is not indifferent to the body, childbirth is painful, the body changes. And this is just the beginning, a child is a life-long responsibility and a lot of sacrifice. And sure, if you want to be a mother, you accept the consequences and the risks – but why do the state, the church, and politicians think they can force you to do so?

The approach to abortion shows whether we consider a woman to be a man who is capable of making decisions about his own body and life. And in our country, a woman is always mature enough and responsible to become a mother, and never mature enough and responsible to leave her the decision whether she will give birth.

What happens around abortion has little to do with logic and common sense …

American women say there are three exceptions to abortion – “rape, incest or me.”

And they are right because somehow MY situation is always special. I also spoke to women who protested outside Florida abortion clinics. They talked about how wonderful it was to grow up in houses where there were five children, and how terrible it is that today women are so selfish, only their careers in their heads. But when I asked them how many children they had on their own, they replied that they had two. “But now I know better! I want to keep other women from making the wrong decisions.” So they had a choice, but they deny it to others.

You notice that the battle over abortion is also an effect of the language used.

If you call an embryo a “conceived child”, there is not much room for maneuver. Likewise, if you call anti-abortionists the “pro life” movement – if they are for life, what are their opponents for? But we should also remember that while the humanity of the fetus and the embryo are still disputes – the extreme on the right grants subjectivity to the fertilized egg, the extreme on the left believes that a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body until delivery, the majority is somewhere in the middle which, moreover, is reflected in the law – a pregnant woman is definitely a human being.

Therefore, the woman’s interests, her health and her autonomous decision should be a priority.

The fact that we are talking about it now, that we have been shouting and shouting over the last few years about the fact that we are discussing abortion again – it has a chance to make a difference, right?

I hope so, because stigma causes silence, silence causes stigma. And over the years, even liberal publicists and journalists began their statements with the fact that abortion is obviously wrong, but in really exceptional cases – extreme poverty, illness, wired relationship; an abortion must be deserved by some kind of trauma – it can possibly be the lesser evil.

If we start talking about abortion as a medical procedure, overcoming a difficult situation, conscious choice, and the possibility of regaining control over our life – there is a chance to change the law.

But it’s a process.

Which took place in Argentina or Ireland: first, it was necessary to change consciousness, protest, go out into the streets, collect signatures on petitions, in order to finally push politicians to act, who – with a few exceptions – look at the polls rather than stand in front of themselves. Remember, five years ago the cover of Wysokie Obcasy with Abortion Dream Team caused a lot of controversy, now the girls appear in the media as experts. You can say on TVN24 “abortion is a human right” and the world is not collapsing – someone may disagree with you, which is cool, this is the debate, but we are already talking about it. This has already changed. The possibilities are widening. Our generation of women in the 30-50s had the worst. For our mothers and aunts, abortion was simply a medical procedure. The younger ones will also not let the Church impress the narrative about sacrificing oneself for the “life of the unborn”. And eventually this table will be kicked out.

Katarzyna Wężyk photo: mat. press releases

* Katarzyna Wężyk – journalist and columnist for “Wysokie Obcasy” and “Gazeta Wyborcza”. In her recently published book “Abortion is”, she gives the floor to women who had an abortion. She asks why they chose to have the surgery and how they did it. For this book, she received the Grand Press 2021 award in the Reporters’ Book of the Year category. The book also won the poll of readers and readers.

The cover of Katarzyna Wężyk’s book ‘Abortion is’ photo: mat. press releases

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