“Undress, Squat, Cough” — Police In Poland Ramp Up The Abortion Crackdown

“Poland’s conservative government has made restricting abortion access a guiding pillar since returning to power in 2015. Now that appears to include orders to police to detain women seeking access to terminate a pregnancy in the case of health risks, one of the few exceptions to the strict national abortion ban.

One Polish woman, identified as “Joanna” told police this week that police detained her, saying she had been pressured into having an abortion. She had purchased abortion pills on her own volition after health problems, and had decided to take them, which is not punishable in Poland,

But the state saw it differently, and Joanna was met at the hospital by four uniformed officers, as reported on Polish television program Fakty on TVN.

“The police asked me to undress, squat, and cough,” Joanna says in the report. “I undressed, but I didn’t take off my underwear, because I was still bleeding,” she said, calling the experience “humiliating.”…”