Medical errors and the abortion law. Lessons from Ireland for Poland – a report by Ordo Iuris

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· In recent months, the media in Poland have widely reported on the tragic deaths of two women, one in Pszczyna and the other in Częstochowa. In both situations, the patients were taken to hospitals due to pregnancy complications and died during hospitalisation, as did their unborn children.

· These incidents are often compared to what happened in Ireland in 2012, receiving much publicity from circles calling for abortion on demand and ultimately leading to its legalisation in Ireland in 2018.

· The report by Ordo Iuris describes situations that bring to light significant deficiencies in medical care for mothers with complicated pregnancies.

· It has been argued that the deaths of the women in Pszczyna and Częstochowa were related to the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal of 22 October 2020 on eugenic abortion.

· Our publication reminds that the law in Poland still allows medical interventions where necessary to save the mother’s life, even if their unintended consequence may be the child’s death.

· The report was presented during a debate with Polish and Irish experts.

The report compiles available information on the circumstances of the death of Savita Halappanavar, a pregnant patient in Ireland in 2012, and on the recent deaths of the patients in hospitals in Pszczyna and Częstochowa. The facts of these cases appear to be similar. As regards the Irish case, the staff of the gynaecology and obstetrics ward to which the patient had been admitted claimed that the law in force at the time had prevented them from taking appropriate action to save the woman’s life. However, the report’s findings demonstrate that the law was misinterpreted by the medical staff, and that the factor that led to the patient’s death was first of all the staff’s failure to properly diagnose the patient’s medical condition; otherwise, it would have been justified to take life-saving action without breaking the law.

In Ireland, the incident that took place in 2012 was instrumentally used to create social acceptance of abortion and to legalise abortion on demand. Similarly, in Poland, pro-abortion circles are trying to posit an alleged link between the tragedies in Pszczyna and Częstochowa and the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal from October 2022. However, in our country, as in Ireland in 2012, the law provides for the possibility of saving the mother’s life, even if the child could die as a result.

In its report, the Ordo Iuris Institute provides a number of recommendations with a view to avoiding situations such as those that took place in Pszczyna and Częstochowa. The analysts call for, among other things, improving the legal education of physicians and other medical professionals and in particular for ensuring that such education covers the whole range of regulations applicable to this type of situations.

Ordo Iuris also draws attention to the need to ensure that the judicial decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal on issues related to the legal protection of life are duly reported on. It is also necessary to enforce the current recommendations of the Polish Society of Gynecologists and Obstetricians, which contain not only guidelines concerning the expected level of care for mothers with complicated pregnancies, but also suggestions on how to deal with a prematurely born child (taking into consideration ethical aspects). 

The report was presented during a debate with Irish and Polish experts. The event was attended by Prof. Patricia Casey – a psychiatrist from University College Dublin and a consultant at Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin, Patrick Buckley from the British Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), Prof. Bogdan Chazan – a gynaecologist and obstetrician, medical director of MaterCare International and Vice-President of the European Federation of Catholic Physicians Associations (FEAMC), and Katarzyna Gęsiak – attorney-at-law and Director of the Ordo Iuris Centre for Medical Law and Bioethics.

“Pro-abortion activists have claimed that the tragedies in Pszczyna and Częstochowa are consequences of the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling from October 2020, which put a ban on eugenic abortion. The truth is that these cases have nothing to do with this ruling. The law in force provides for the possibility, and even the obligation, to save the mother’s life even if a medical intervention could lead to the unintentional death of the unborn child”, said Katarzyna Gęsiak when opening the debate.

Patrick Buckley made similar points, using Ireland as an example.

“The Irish law protects the life of the child just as much as the life of the mother. Mrs Halappanavar’s death was not the result of an inadequate law in Ireland. The doctors were obliged to save the mother’s life, even taking the risk that the procedures to save her life could lead to the child’s death”, he noted.

Prof. Chazan spoke about the Dublin Declaration, signed by gynaecologists and obstetricians from all over the world.

“The Dublin Declaration states that the purposeful destruction of the unborn child is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman. There is a fundamental difference between abortion and medically necessary treatment to save the mother’s life, even if such treatments result in the unintentional death of the child. In no way does putting a ban on abortion affect the ability to provide health care to pregnant women”, stressed the doctor.

Patricia Casey discussed the impact of abortion on a woman’s mental health.

“Research from the Royal College of Physicians demonstrates that there is no evidence that abortion helps to cure depression. It has brought no psychiatric benefits to women who have decided to undergo abortion. Moreover, if a woman had previously suffered from depression, then the risk after abortion increased”, she explained.