With Poland’s change in government, the country’s few abortion providers are hopeful about expanded access

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Anyone driving into the Polish town of Olesnica would have a hard time missing the gory message splashed across a billboard near a small church. The sign features a giant image of a bloody, mutilated fetus next to a photograph of the local hospital.

“Dr. Gizela Jagielska on abortions in Olesnica hospital: Yes, that’s right. I do abortions,” reads the stark lettering across the top of the photos.

The billboard and another one across town that’s equally graphic have become part of Dr. Jagielska’s life, along with threatening e-mails and regular protests outside her office orchestrated by an anti-abortion group that equates her with Adolf Hitler.

“They’re very loud, and it’s very uncomfortable,” said Dr. Jagielska, who has been practising gynecology for 18 years and is also the hospital’s deputy director. “But I think that it’s more uncomfortable for our patients. I finish work, I go home. They are lying here and listening to them screaming, ‘You’re a murderer’ and so on.”

Poland has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, and Olesnica’s hospital is among the few medical centres in the country willing to perform the procedure. It’s also the only one prepared to do late-stage terminations, typically after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Dr. Jagielska, 44, hardly looks like a threat to anyone. She’s tiny and has the exhausted countenance of a doctor who has delivered countless babies at all hours. On a recent visit, she sat in her small office clutching a blanket to ward off an early autumn chill. A few books lined the window sill next to a large baby doll and several thank you cards from grateful patients were displayed on shelves and cabinets.

She took up gynecology after a visit to a maternity ward during her first year of medical school in nearby Wroclaw. “I knew that there can be very happy moments but that I am also obliged to do abortions,” she recalled.

She and her team perform about a dozen abortions a month and they don’t think twice about doing everything possible to help women who want to end a pregnancy. “I am a gynecologist not only for those women who want to be pregnant but also for those who do not want to be pregnant,” she said.

There are only two exemptions under Poland’s abortion ban. One is for cases of sexual assault, but only within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and with proof of a police investigation into the assault. The second exemption applies to instances where the pregnancy, at any stage, poses a risk to the woman’s life or health.

Because the law is so strict, most doctors are afraid to perform abortions. As a result, women from across the country travel to Olesnica to see Dr. Jagielska. Most get help from the Foundation for Women and Family Planning, a Warsaw-based pro-choice group that has developed a network of psychiatrists who are willing to recommend an abortion if they believe that continuing the pregnancy threatens the mental health of the woman.

Late-term abortions are usually done because other hospitals failed to properly test the fetus for abnormalities or because the test results took too long. And those problems have gotten worse. Three years ago, Olesnica’s hospital performed three or four late-term abortions a year; now, the team does that many in a month.

Dr. Jagielska is no stranger to the abortion debate in Poland, although she doesn’t share many of the religious qualms. She’s from Wroclaw, but her Jewish upbringing detached her from the teachings of the Catholic Church and the powerful influence it has on Polish society and politics.

The church’s role in daily life increased significantly after the end of communist rule in 1989, and abortion has largely been banned since 1993. Since the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in 2015, the government has become even more attuned to the edicts of Catholic bishops.

In 2020, the Constitutional Tribunal, which critics say has been politicized by PiS, struck down a legal provision that allowed abortions in cases involving fetal abnormalities. The ruling sparked nationwide protests, and abortion became a key issue in the run-up to parliamentary elections on Oct. 15. Voter turnout topped 74 per cent, the highest since 1989, and in Warsaw it hit 85 per cent.

A coalition of three opposition parties led by Donald Tusk, the leader of Civic Platform (KO), won a comfortable majority and ended eight years of PiS rule. Mr. Tusk has promised to legalize abortion under any circumstances in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy; after that the procedure would be permitted if the woman’s life or health were endangered or if the fetus was severely impaired.

Many of the newly elected MPs in Mr. Tusk’s coalition ran on the issue of abortion and are determined to ensure his promise is fulfilled. The election win “is going to mean a lot if we are going to be able to stop this violation of women’s rights in Poland,” said Aleksandra Wiśniewska, a 29-year-old humanitarian aid worker who ran as a first-time candidate for KO and scored an upset victory in Lodz.

But changing the law won’t be easy.

One of the coalition partners, the Third Way, has been far less committed to easing the restrictions and prefers holding a referendum on the issue. PiS also remains a formidable opponent.

The party won the most votes in the election and holds 194 seats in the 460-seat legislature. As the head of state, President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, can veto legislation and has two years left in his term. The opposition coalition can’t counter a veto because it didn’t win enough seats to overrule the President.

The Catholic Church also remains a potent force and can rely on a number of like-minded organizations to fight any easing of the restrictions.

“Abortion is killing, it’s the murder of children,” said Rafal Buca, 22, an executive member of All Polish Youth, a nationalist organization with strong ties to the church. Mr. Buca believes abortion should only be allowed if a woman’s life is at risk – and he rules it out in cases of sexual assault. “It’s not the fault of the children,” he said.

All of that has left Dr. Jagielska and many others cautiously optimistic. She considered leaving the country if PiS had been returned to power but now hopes for the best from Mr. Tusk. “We will see what the first 100 days of new government shows us,” she said.

She would like to see Poland move toward a Canadian model, where there are no legal restrictions and abortion is considered a medical service. “I don’t know why abortion is such a big issue,” she said. “Because I think that everybody should have a right to choose – women also because this is their bodies, their pregnancy. This is their decision.”