Overview

• A Pszczyna court convicted three doctors for their role in the 2021 death of 30-year-old Izabela and sentenced them to prison terms plus bans on medical practice.
• Judges determined the physicians’ “wait-and-see” approach delayed a needed abortion and led to Izabela’s septic shock at 22 weeks of pregnancy.
• Two doctors received prison sentences exceeding one year with six-year professional bans, and their supervisor was handed a suspended one-year term and a four-year ban.
• Rights groups say this marks the first criminal conviction of medical staff for delayed abortion care under Poland’s restrictive legal framework.
• Legislative efforts to loosen abortion regulations have stalled and official data report fewer than 900 legal abortions in 2024 despite NGOs documenting tens of thousands of unrecorded cases.