Rafał Bochenek made the comment in an interview with public broadcaster Polish Radio on Friday.
He was referring to the highly publicised case of a woman, identified only as Joanna, who was hospitalised in the southern Polish city of Kraków earlier this year.
'The case of Joanna'
The woman was admitted to an emergency ward after taking an abortion pill which she said she had bought online, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Private broadcaster TVN on Tuesday aired a report suggesting that police officers sent to interview the woman may have misused their powers and intimidated her.
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 have reported.
Poland's National Police Headquarters on Thursday said that “police officers intervened after a psychiatrist had alerted authorities that her patient may attempt suicide, after earlier taking a substance of unknown origin,” the PAP news agency reported.
Poland’s police chief Jarosław Szymczyk said on Thursday he sincerely regretted Joanna’s “extremely difficult life situation,” but stressed that "the situation had not been caused by the police."
With the prosecutor’s consent, Szymczyk also unveiled footage from the case, the PAP news agency reported.
‘Police acted appropriately’
Bochenek told Polish Radio on Friday that "the released footage from Joanna’s case" and "the statement from her psychiatrist," who had called the police, “should clarify the matter once and for all.”
Bochenek said that “police officers were called because of Joanna's declared intention to attempt suicide.”
“The doctor informed the police about this,” he added. “The police acted appropriately and the doctor did her duty as well.”
Opposition 'seeking to use this case for political gain'
Bochenek also argued that the TVN station and opposition politicians, including Poland's largest opposition party, the Civic Platform (PO), were "seeking to use this case for political gain.”
He told Polish Radio: “TVN and PO politicians claim to care about women, yet they are attacking a woman, a doctor, who did her duty, who acted responsibly, and with presence of mind, as a doctor should in such a situation.”
PO leader Donald Tusk, a former prime minister, has announced that the opposition will hold a rally in protest against how the police treated the woman and Poland's restrictive abortion regulations, the PAP news agency reported.
Dubbed the "March of a Million Hearts,” the rally is scheduled for October 1, just weeks before a parliamentary election, according to news outlets.
Protests over abortion rights
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, gazetaprawna.pl
