Poland has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. Izabela Sajbor’s family say those laws are responsible for her death
“I hope I don’t get sepsis because then I won’t leave this place,” the 30-year-old wrote in a series of poignant messages to her mother, just 12 hours before her death.
Izabela was hospitalized after giving birth prematurely at 22 weeks pregnant.
Just a few weeks ago, she was told that her unborn baby had Edwards Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. Most diagnosed with this condition will die before they are born; Her doctor told her to prepare for that result.
Izabela was heartbroken, sister-in-law Barbara Skrobol told CNN. She desperately wanted a baby, her 9-year-old daughter.
But after an abnormal diagnosis of the fetus, Izabela requested an abortion for medical reasons.
“They went to the doctors in Poland and asked if they could terminate the pregnancy,” Skrobol said. They said “no”.
From her hospital bed in Pszczyna, southern Poland, Izabela explained to her mother that doctors were waiting for the baby’s heart to stop before they could operate on her by cesarean section to avoid sepsis – a life-threatening illness. by the body’s response to infection.
“My life is in danger,” she said in a text message.
“Doctors cannot help as long as the fetus is alive thanks to anti-abortion laws,” she wrote. “Women are like incubators.”
When the scan showed that the fetus was stillborn, Izabela was taken to the operating room. But on the way there, Izabela suffered a cardiac arrest and died, according to her family’s attorney.
But no official cause of death has been given. And, it’s not clear why Izabela’s doctors didn’t perform the abortion.
For nearly three decades, abortion in the predominantly Catholic country was only permitted under three circumstances: If the pregnancy was due to rape or incest, if the mother’s life was at risk, or in abnormal fetus.
But when the Law and Justice Conservatives (PiS) came to power in 2015, they pledged to tighten the law even further, and vowed to eliminate the exception for fetal abnormalities, which is often the case. most frequently used for legal abortion, accounting for 98% of all known legal abortions performed in Poland in 2019, according to data from the Polish Ministry of Health.
Parliamentary opposition has prevented the party from amending the law. But in October 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Court – the country’s highest court – ruled it unconstitutional for women to terminate a pregnancy in the case of an abnormal fetus, saying the exception constitutes “eugenic practice”.
Within a year of that ruling, Izabela was dead.
The regional prosecutor’s office in Katowice has opened a preliminary criminal investigation since then.
The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, weighed in on Izabela’s case during last year’s press conference, asking why the abortion was not performed and why her life was not saved.
“The doctors in the hospital didn’t perform the abortion, so you have to answer why it happened and why the woman’s life wasn’t saved,” Duda said.
Pszczyna County Hospital denies any negligence has occurred. It will not discuss any further details of the incident with CNN.
In a statement on its website, posted in November, the hospital wrote that the doctors involved in the incident have been suspended while the investigation continues.
The hospital said: “The doctors and midwives did everything in their power and fought hard for the Patient and her Child.”
The hospital said it shares the pain of all those affected by Izabela’s death, especially her family.
“It is necessary … to emphasize that … all medical decisions are made taking into account the legal provisions and standards of conduct in force in Poland,” the hospital said.
The Polish government has defended the law in a statement to CNN, saying, “A pregnancy termination is still legal when a woman’s life is at stake.”
‘It’s hard to be a woman in Poland’
Poland and Malta are the only European Union member states that maintain highly restrictive abortion laws.
Nikodem Bernaciak, a legal analyst at the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, an anti-abortion conservative group, told CNN that the law is about upholding the constitution.
“A constitutional court has decided that the life of every human being is also the life before birth,” Bernaciak said.
But reproductive rights activists say Poland’s increasingly strict abortion laws have put women like Izabela at risk.
Activist and doula Justyna Wydrzynska, from abortion rights advocacy network Aborcyjny Dream Team (ADT) is facing three years in prison for sending abortion pills to a pregnant woman who says she is being abused. domestic violence. Wydrzynska admitted to assisting the woman but pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to appear in court in July.
“This is how patriarchy works here, taking away reproductive rights,” Wydrzynska told CNN. “It’s really hard to be a woman in Poland.”
In Poland, it is legal to self-administer the abortion pill, but it is not legal to assist others.
Wydrzynska said women in Poland are being attacked like never before. Women contemplating abortions now shy away from seeking advice from doctors, she said, explaining that they are turning to activists like her for help.
“It’s scary when the responsibility for those people lies with us,” she said. “They have no psychological support.”
Some of the hardest calls she has had to receive are from women like Izabela, who have had tests that show fetal abnormalities, and who know they must continue with the pregnancy they know will. unable to survive birth.
“Sometimes it’s hard for us to listen to this,” she said. “They have to leave the country as a criminal, and they have to seek help elsewhere.”
Last year, ADT and Abortion Without Borders helped 1,540 women in Poland go abroad for abortions, according to Wydrzynska.
Dr Magdalena Dutsch, from the Warsaw Institute of Women’s Health, said the law was punishing Poland’s poorest, noting the financial burden on women who choose to travel abroad for abortions.
“This is a huge inequality because not everyone has the money to go to Slovakia for an abortion and as a doctor I have to help everyone equally – so that just makes it easier,” she said. hurt more”.
Even inside Poland, Dutsch said the law was like a “lottery of places” for pregnant women who could put their lives at risk.
“If you live in Warsaw and you can go to this hospital where we’re open and we talk about it… we have a slightly different interpretation of the law and we’re not afraid,” she said. .
But the law was in effect cold, she said.
Activists say women are often reluctant to ask for help, and some doctors worry about the consequences of an abortion if they are deemed too quick to have an abortion, even in a life-threatening situation. mother is in danger – as was the case with Izabela.
Dutsch told CNN she couldn’t understand the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade. For her, the decision to have an abortion is a fundamental right.
“It shocks me that this freedom of choice is being taken away from women – even in the United States, which she once considered the land of ‘freedom,’” she said.
CNN’s Anna Odzeniak contributed reporting.
