Piotr Müller made the announcement in an interview with the wp.pl website, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
It came after private broadcaster TVN on Tuesday aired a report suggesting that police officers may have misused their powers and intimidated the woman when she was in a hospital in the southern Polish city of Kraków earlier this year.
The woman, identified only as Joanna, was admitted to an emergency ward after taking an abortion pill which she said she had bought online, the PAP news agency reported.
According to the police, the woman may have been provided with an illegal abortion pill to help terminate her pregnancy.
In Poland, terminating one’s own pregnancy is not a crime, but assisting the woman in terminating her pregnancy is punishable by up to three years in prison, news outlets reported.
Poland's National Police Headquarters said that “police officers intervened after a psychiatrist had alerted authorities that his patient may have attempted suicide, after earlier taking a substance of unknown origin,” the PAP news agency reported.
Asked if the police could have overstepped their authority, the government spokesman said: “It is up to the relevant authorities to determine.”
He added that such cases require “extreme delicacy” and should not be judged prematurely.
Müller stated: “If rules were broken, which is something that will be assessed by the relevant authorities, then those responsible will face consequences.”
He added: “Maybe police officers made some mistakes, and maybe the full evidence will throw a different light on the situation. In such cases, the full evidence must be collected.”
Müller told wp.pl: “I am deeply convinced and it is my hope that this case will be explained soon.”
'March of a Million Hearts'
He was also asked about an opposition rally scheduled for the autumn, just weeks before a parliamentary election, in protest against the police intervention against the woman and Poland's restrictive abortion regulations.
Donald Tusk, a former prime minister and the leader of the main opposition party, the Civic Platform (PO), has announced that the protest, dubbed the "March of a Million Hearts,” will take place on October 1, the PAP news agency reported.
Müller commented: “Donald Tusk is seeking to turn everything that's in the news into a political weapon,” the PAP news agency reported.
Last month, protest marches were held in many Polish cities to demand a relaxation of abortion rules following the death of a pregnant woman who should have been offered an abortion to save her life, according to experts.
Poland's conservative leader Jarosław Kaczyński said at the time that, despite a toughening of abortion regulations in 2020, abortion in Poland “remains legal when a woman’s life or health is in danger,” the PAP news agency reported.
Abortion is allowed in Poland only when the pregnancy endangers the life or health of the woman or if it is a result of "a forbidden act," such as rape or incest.
In March, Polish lawmakers rejected a bill that would have restricted the country's abortion law by imposing prison terms on those aiding terminations.
In December 2021, Polish MPs voted down a proposal that would have outlawed abortion by defining it as homicide.
The country's abortion regulations were last modified after its Constitutional Tribunal in October 2020 ruled that abortion due to serious fetal defects and severe illnesses was unconstitutional.
The ruling prompted a wave of protests across the country.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Polsat News
