Warsaw: Protest Against Attack on Reproductive Rights
Akai47, Nie, 2009-01-25 16:10
English
On Jan. 24, about 200 opponents of the so-called "Gowin Bill" protested in front of the Polish parliament, the Sejm. The Gowin Bill is yet another attack on reproductive rights, this time aimed at in vitro fertilization.
A few months ago, the scummy PR machine of the ruling Civic Platform were claming that "Civic Platform wants in vitro readily accessible". Nothing could be further from the truth. The bill prepared by Jaroslaw Gowin, in essence would make in vitro practically impossible.
Gowin's Bill contains many scandalous ideas. According to it, women would not be able to use sperm from anybody other than her husband and would not be able to use eggs from anybody but herself. It wouldn't allow women to freeze sperm or eggs, meaning that if a woman's in vitro did not succeed with one treatment, she would have to undergone hormonal therapy again to harvest more eggs and undergone the in vitro itself again - a painful procedure. In vitro fertilization should only be available to married couples and women under 40.
Just for good measure, the bill sneaks in some other things. The Catholic Church would always be represented on the Bioethics Committee. Also, doctors who refuse to preform legal abortions (which in Poland are only in life threatening situations or cases of rape or incest), would no longer be required to refer the patient to a doctor who would do it.
Paying for in vitro is also an issue. It is not clear whether even the very limited scope of in vitro allowed will be covered by the National Health Fund. Currently the cost of in vitro is about $1700 per attempt.
This is clearly another attack on reproductive rights inspired by the church. The women and men gathered at Saturday's protest spoke out against both the church's invigilation of people's lives as well as the position of the government in this matter.
Some of the demonstrators have formed a civic campaign to introduce a new bill on bioethics. The bill, which would regulate in vitro fertilization, would eliminate barriers to obtaining and conducting the procedure. To introduce the bill, either a parliamentary group will have to sponsor it or enough signatures will have to be gathered.
Gowin's bill was written around the same time as the Vatican was preparing "instructions" on in vitro. The instructions were, quite oddly, announced Dec. 12 in both the Vatican and Warsaw. According to the Vatican, in vitro fertilization equals the murder of embryos, since not every embryo leads to a sustainable pregnacy.
An organization supporting people who want to adopt children or have in vitro called "Our Stork" was one of about a dozen groups that co-organized the protest. A representative of the group pointed out that in natural conception also not all fertilizations lead to a sustainable pregnancy - only about 30% of fertilized embryos do.
