Polish Media Texts

This is a translation of the original Polish article, which can be found here. The translation is unauthorised, and is provided for educational, informational and non-commercial purposes only'

King Herod’s Hospital

Stanisław Michalkiewicz, Polska Niepodległa

When physicians at Holy Family Hospital in Warsaw left a child to die after a botched abortion, the issue of the legality of this procedure returned to the news. A proposed bill to limit the possibility of killing an unborn children without punishment was brought before parliament.

According to the current law, there is impunity for such killings in cases when the woman's life or health is endangered, when the pregnancy is the result of a criminal act or when the fetus is seriously malformed. However, the new bill provides immunity only when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, enabling the court not to punish the mother of such a child.

The latter provision of the bill reminds me of my own proposed abortion law of 1991, consisting of a single sentence, in the form of an additional paragraph to Article 148 of the Criminal Code that regulates criminal responsibility for murder. The sentence was as follows: ‘In case of the murder of an unborn child, the instigator may be released from punishment by the court.

’What would be the consequences of such regulation?

Firstly, abortion would be treated as the murder of a human being, and not only a ‘fetus’, since the latter is a kind of semantic trick, excluding the unborn children from the scope of human rights.

Secondly, the performer of abortion would be responsible for the murder, which, as we know, is punishable even by life imprisonment. The lower limit of the penalty for murder is eight years in prison. Whereas in such crimes the child's mother tends to be the instigator, she does not herself deprive the child of life, but urges somebody else to do so. According to the principles of criminal law, an instigator is responsible in the same way as the perpetrator. However, given that there are situations when the mother of a child is put under huge pressure, the court would in certain cases have the right to waive the penalty for such a person.

The regulation takes into account the general principles of criminal responsibility, that is, the so-called ‘justification’, in a situation where even though a human being has been deprived of life, such an action is not considered to be a crime due to the state of necessity. This occurs when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, as the state of necessity is a circumstance when the perpetrator’s interest is protected by law at the cost of another. This is stated in the general section of the Criminal Code, so there is no need to go into detail.

As we known, in this case a compromise won out following from which the killing of unborn life became partially legal, and in cases where it was illegal it was considered to be a “privileged” crime, treated much more leniently than regular murder. As a result, the supporters of the compromise indirectly admitted that the “fetus” is not a human being. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain this leniency.

This is an example of the new cult expanding in Poland, namely the worship of the “Holy Peace” [a Polish saying meaning “peace and quiet”] which is gradually replacing the previously dominant Catholic religion. This new deity has only one commandment: to offend no one. This is why the cult of Holy Peace differs widely from Christianity, because Christians are required to tell the truth, not to give compliments.

Translated by: Tomaszek Katarzyna Cymerys Marta Lipska Aleksandra Radiowska Karolina