Reproductive Governance and the (Re)definition of Human Rights in Poland

ABSTRACT

Reproductive rights struggles have continued to dominate public debates in Poland since the political resurgence of the Catholic church in 1989. In 2015, the state passed a landmark “In Vitro Policy” to regulate assisted reproductive technologies. Its religiously based compromises may jeopardize other reproductive rights. I argue that the new policy negotiations demonstrate how versions of competing human rights claims are central to reproductive governance and struggles in the new Polish “ethical order.” These negotiations reveal a reciprocal and temporal effect between infertility and abortion laws, in which previously enacted abortion restrictions are used to limit and define “In Vitro” rights.

KEYWORDS:

• Poland
• abortion
• assisted reproductive technologies
• human rights
• reproductive governance
• reproductive rights and policies

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the research participants, in particular members of Our Stork and its co-founder Anna Krawczak, for generously sharing their perspectives and experiences with me. I thank Wanda Nowicka for initiating my thinking about the politics of abortion and infertility together, and for facilitating my access to the Parliament’s meetings during this fieldwork. The guest editors of this special issue Elyse Singer and Mounia El Konti, the anonymous reviewers, and my anthropology colleagues at the University of Warsaw, in particular Magdalena Radkowska-Walkowicz, provided insightful feedback on versions of this article and I appreciate their support and guidance. I am also grateful for the editorial assistance of the journal’s Editor, Lenore Manderson.

Notes

1. See European Parliament Report June 6, 2002: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A5-2002-0223+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN.

2. In other nations with a powerful Catholic church, ARTs are available. In Ireland, regulated by the Medical Council Guidelines, and restriction prohibiting embryo destruction have recently been eliminated (Walsh, Ma, and Sills 2011:2). In Malta ARTs are available and unregulated, although recent discussions focus on protecting surplus embryos (Bianchi 2011). Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi restricted ARTs in 2004; this law has since been partially liberalized.

3. See: The archive of the Republic of Poland Parliament (Sejm), the course of the legislative proceedings, form #3245: http://www.sejm.gov.pl/sejm7.nsf/PrzebiegProc.xsp?id=6F0AC09FB9FE0837C1257E0C0040B31F.

4. See “IVF—chance of success” section: http://www.hfea.gov.uk/ivf-success-rate.html.

5. Anthropologist Radkowska-Walkowicz (2014) argues that pro-ART liberal discourses in Poland focus narrowly on positives and preclude critiques of ARTs from perspectives of medicalization, the “mother imperative,” or potentially negative health consequences of ART procedures.

6. “Ustawa o leczeniu niepłodności,” Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, 2015, p. 3. See: http://orka.sejm.gov.pl/proc7.nsf/ustawy/608_u.htm. This is akin to WHO’s embryo definition in the context of ARTs which is: “the product of the division of the zygote to the end of the embryonic stage, 8 weeks after fertilization.” See: http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/infertility/art_terminology2.pdf?ua=1.

7. Only some clinics are qualified to provide ARTs under this National Health Fund policy, leaving the majority of patients to depend on private insurance or out-of-pocket payments.

8. “Ustawa o leczeniu niepłodności,” Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, 2015, Art. 21 and Art. 23. See: http://orka.sejm.gov.pl/proc7.nsf/ustawy/608_u.htm.

9. See Our Stork organization website: http://www.nasz-bocian.pl/node/56361.

10. See: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20160930IPR44805/women-s-rights-in-poland-spark-european-debate.

11. See United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner: http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20694&LangID=E.

12. See: http://www.hfhr.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/raport-III-sesja-UPR_final.2.2.2017.pdf, pp. 2, 11.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the International Research Exchanges Board—IREX, and the European Center for Excellence, United States. The analysis phase was funded by The Brocher Foundation, Switzerland. Ethical approval for this research was secured from the Institutional Review Board at the University of Central Florida.

Notes on contributors

Joanna Mishtal

Joanna Mishtal is an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Central Florida. She researches gender and governance, focusing on reproductive rights and policies in Poland, Ireland, and the European Union. She is the author of The Politics of Morality: The Church, the State and Reproductive Rights in Postsocialist Poland (2015), and co-editor with Silvia De Zordo and Lorena Anton of A Fragmented Landscape: Abortion Governance and Protest Logics in Europe (2017).