According to reports, local hospitals and doctors in the Podlasie region of Poland refused to abort the preborn child of an intellectually disabled 14-year-old girl who became pregnant from rape. Though abortion is allowed in Poland only in cases of rape/incest or when the mother’s health is on the line, medical professionals can opt out of participation in abortion if it goes against their conscience.
Investigating the conscience clause
Ultimately, the girl, who was abused by her uncle and brought for the abortion by her aunt, underwent an abortion in Warsaw with the help of the pro-abortion group FEDERA, though it has not been reported how many weeks pregnant she was at the time. It has also not been reported as to whether or not the aunt knew about the abuse prior to the girl’s pregnancy. Yet an investigation is being carried out against the hospital and staff as pro-abortion politicians in Poland attack the country’s conscience protections for medical professionals.
“The conscience clause is a barbaric and inhumane law repeatedly exploited by doctors. It should be abolished,” Katarzyna Kotula, an MP from The Left (Lewica), Poland’s second-largest opposition group, said according to the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Another MP from The Left, Paweł Krutul, claimed, “Young girls are suffering because of your stupid laws. See what fate you have prepared for Polish women. It’s a disgrace.”
The Left has written a letter to the health minister Adam Niedzielski asking him to explain “how is it possible that in the 21st century, a girl harmed by such a disgusting crime could not exercise her rights in her province of residence.”
While health professionals may refuse to commit abortions against their conscience in Poland, they must refer the woman or girl to a medical professional who will take money to kill her undelivered child. It is reported that the local hospitals in this case did not refer the girl or her aunt to an abortionist. Therefore, health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said that the local hospital “acted against statutory provisions” and added that “such an abortion [should] either be carried out or [they should] indicate a place where such an abortion can be carried out.”
The real injustice here, however, is not that a preborn baby couldn’t be killed, but that the uncle was able to rape his intellectually disabled niece — and no media outlets are questioning what the aunt knew or how the uncle has been punished. As Live Action’s Aiding Abusers investigation revealed, abortion has long been used as a way for abusers to continue to control their victims and to destroy any proof of the rapes.
Abortion is barbaric
It should be common sense that abortion is an act that is “barbaric” and a “disgrace.” No doctor should be forced to commit one. During an abortion, a living human being is killed in a violent manner. In a first-trimester surgical abortion (a D&C), the child dies when she is suctioned out of the womb with a force so strong that her tiny body is torn to pieces. In a second-trimester surgical abortion, a child dies when the abortionist dismembers her — tearing her arms and legs from her torso before crushing her skull. In a third-trimester abortion, a child dies by an induced heart attack or is left to die after being born alive during an induced labor abortion in which her heart was not stopped prior to delivery. The use of chemical abortions — the abortion pill — is on the rise, killing children by depriving them of nourishment and oxygen before forcing contractions that expel them from the uterus.
Sacrificing children is barbaric and disgraceful. Doctors who refuse to partake are not.
In addition, it has been reported that the girl did not know she was pregnant, which means she may not have had any say in whether or not her baby was killed.
Negative effects of abortion on medical professionals
Conscience laws exist in order to protect medical professionals from carrying out acts that go against their beliefs and their consciences, such as abortion and assisted suicide. Abortion workers have reported mental health concerns related to their jobs including nightmares and higher levels of emotional stress. Research has found that the more directly involved in the abortion procedure, the higher the emotional demands on nurses, leading to increased stress levels. One former abortion worker, Noemi, explained:
Working in an abortion clinic consumed me: it messed with my mind on a daily basis. I told myself countless lies to help me deal with the reality of the gruesome work I was doing — lies to help me make it through the day. I was an empty shell of the person and nurse I had formerly been.
There was a time I took pride in being a nurse and the abortion clinic killed that. I cringed whenever someone asked what I did for a living. My scrubs were no longer my badge of honor, they had become tainted with the blood of innocent babies.
Having conscience protections for medical professionals is important in ensuring no one is forced to participate in unethical acts such as abortion — an act whose mental health ramifications even willing participants struggle with.
Abortion after rape adds more trauma
While abortion advocates view killing a child conceived in rape as an act of compassion, the truth is that abortion will never undo rape. And women who have undergone an abortion following a sexual assault have said that the abortion was worse than the rape.
“I could never ever deal with my rape because I was so focused on what I had done in choosing abortion,” explained rape survivor Ashley Sigrest. “And that’s what people don’t understand when they tell rape victims, ‘Oh yes, have an abortion so that way you can go on and we can deal with the rape.’ But the abortion just makes the rape 1,000 times worse because now you have these two horrible events that you have to deal with.”
Assaulting a child is a horrific act, and every adult knows that a young girl who becomes pregnant suffered unimaginable trauma at the hands of a child rapist. Young girls are at potentially serious physical risk during pregnancy and labor, as their bodies are less prepared than adult women’s bodies to deliver babies, but they are also at serious risk for abortion-related complications.
Abortion advocates consistently exploit child sex abuse victims in order to push for legalized abortion in the United States, and pro-abortion FEDERA now appears to be doing the same in Poland. The group said on Facebook, “We have no words of indignation against this treatment. Of course, we’ll take care of it as soon as possible. But the most important thing for us was helping the girl. We monitored the case to the end. An abortion took place in Warsaw. Baby girl is doing well and she is home.” The irony of the term “baby girl” coupled with the impossible idea that they “monitored this case to the end” shows just how self-centered FEDERA is. The abortion they secured was the end of life for one “baby” and the beginning of the need for deep healing from two traumas for a 14-year-old girl.
