Poland Shows the Risks for Women When Abortion Is Banned

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Poland’s abortion ban has had many unintended consequences. One is that doctors are sometimes afraid to remove fetuses or administer cancer treatment to save women’s lives.

Barbara Skrobol visiting the grave of her sister-in-law Izabela Sajbor and her unborn child at a cemetery in Cwiklice, Poland. | Anna Liminowicz for The New York Times
PSZCZYNA, Poland — It was shortly before 11 p.m. when Izabela Sajbor realized the doctors were prepared to let her die.

Her doctor had already told her that her fetus had severe abnormalities and would almost certainly die in the womb. If it made it to term, life expectancy was a year, at most. At 22 weeks pregnant, Ms. Sajbor had been admitted to a hospital after her water broke prematurely.

She knew that there was a short window to induce birth or surgically remove the fetus to avert infection and potentially fatal sepsis. But even as she developed a fever, vomited and convulsed on the floor, it seemed to be the baby’s heartbeat that the doctors were most concerned about.

“My life is in danger,” she wrote in a string of distressed text messages to her mother and husband that was shared with The New York Times by her family’s lawyer.

“They cannot help as long as the fetus is alive thanks to the anti-abortion law,” she wrote only hours before she died. “A woman is like an incubator.” » | Katrin Bennhold and Monika Pronczuk | Sunday, June 12, 2022