For the entire eight years the conservative Law and Justice Party governed in Poland, progressives accused them of strangling democracy. Historian Anne Applebaum dedicated a large portion of her hysterical 2020 book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, to smearing Law and Justice as corrupt, thuggish theocrats for appointing conservatives to roles in state media and the judiciary. When progressives appoint their fellow ideologues to positions of influence, it is “norms.” When social conservatives do it, it is fascism.
These critics have been notably silent as Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who took power last year despite winning fewer votes than Law and Justice by cobbling together a tenuous coalition government, launched a widescale crackdown on his ideological enemies, firing his predecessor’s appointees wherever possible. As Daniel Tilles noted: “By failing to hold the new government to the same standards as it did the previous one, the international community risks allowing continued violations of democratic norms and substantiating the former ruling party’s claims that the criticism it faced was purely political.”
Indeed. One progressive columnist actually wrote that Tusk was violating norms “in defence of norms.”
Tusk has now done it again. He ran for office on a commitment to legalize abortion in Poland, but has thus far failed to do so – to the fury of his erstwhile feminist supporters.Earlier this month, conservative members of his coalition – almost the entire caucus of the Polish People’s Party – voted against his proposal to legalize abortion on demand for the first three months of pregnancy. Abortion activists demanded that he remove those opposed to their agenda from his cabinet, but Tusk cannot risk upsetting his fragile alliances. Instead, he decided to circumvent the legislature entirely and legalize abortion via backdoor methods.
Under the current law, abortion is illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or severe threat to the pregnant woman’s health. On August 30, Tusk’s Health Ministry published new guidelines stating that a recommendation by a single doctor, including a psychiatrist, endocrinologist, or cardiologist, is a sufficient basis for a woman to procure a legal abortion at a Polish hospital, and that doctors should be able to perform the procedure without fearing prosecution. The goal is to ensure that if women find a willing doctor to rubber-stamp their abortion as health-related, they can easily obtain one.
Tusk stated as much. “We are looking for such ways of acting, in accordance with the law, that will allow access to legal abortion for women who, for various reasons, should have the right to this abortion.” Health Minister Izabela Leszcyna concurred, stating: “A pregnant woman turning to a medical entity that has a contract with the National Health Fund with a medical referral that the pregnancy is a threat to her health, must receive the medical service of abortion in this entity.”
Additionally, hospitals that refuse to perform an abortion on a woman with a medical referral could, under this new regime, be fined up to 500,000 zlotys (around $129,300) or lose their National Health Fund contract. Instead of being discouraged to perform abortions, the Tusk government is demanding that doctors perform them when asked.Having failed to persuade the people’s elected representatives to vote in favor of legalizing abortion, Tusk has decided to dispense with democracy altogether and deliver abortion activists a regime in which abortion is easily accessible without a vote.
He did not secure the majority of Polish votes during the election; he could not secure enough votes to pass legislation enshrining abortion on demand into Polish law. But because Tusk is subverting democracy for the purpose of making it easier to kill babies in the womb, he will be praised by the very same people who raged against Law and Justice for nearly a decade. The entire charade is despicable.
