GroenLinks wants doctors in the Netherlands to be allowed to prescribe abortion pills remotely. By prescribing these pills, which allow women to safely end a pregnancy up to twelve weeks, the party wants to make and keep abortion more accessible in Europe. Martin Buijsen, Professor of Health Law at Erasmus School of Law, explains to NRC why he disagrees with this plan.
On Monday, 6 March 2023, Member of Parliament Corinne Ellemeet presented a plan to provide digital consultations from the Netherlands. This way, she wants to ensure that mainly Polish women in the early stages of their pregnancy no longer have to travel abroad or order abortion pills through detours. Women are not punishable in Poland if they take abortion pills themselves. However, doctors who dispense them are.
Polish abortion law
Poland has had an almost complete ban on abortion since 2020. As such, the country has one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. Only in cases of incest, rape or if the pregnancy threatens the pregnant person’s life is abortion allowed. But even when abortion should have been allowed, access to it is sometimes denied, or doctors raise conscientious objections.
Polish women are currently allowed to travel abroad or order abortion pills by detour. But this may also be prevented in the future; a citizens’ initiative to criminalise all abortion assistance is currently being decided upon by the Polish House of Commons. If parliament agrees with this initiative, Polish activists and doctors will no longer be allowed to inform women of their options to end their pregnancies abroad or with pills.
Mutual respect and second-class care
Although Poland’s conservative-nationalist ruling party has spoken out against this far-reaching plan, it believes the Netherlands is already interfering too much in its internal policies and the Polish rule of law. Ellemeet’s plan would, thus, definitely rub the wrong way. “Non-standard medical care, such as euthanasia and abortion, is left to the member states themselves for a reason”, Buijsen says. “Every country makes its own choice, and opinions vary widely. Poland respects our policies and expects the same the other way around.”
Additionally, Buijsen believes Ellemeet’s plan does not fit with providing good care. “You necessarily want to see patients for a good, personal conversation, not just a face on a screen. Dispensing pills after just an online consult is second-class care”, argues the Health Law Professor.
The question is whether the Dutch Parliament will agree with Ellemeet’s plan. Both the SP and the PVDA have expressed doubts about its feasibility and desirability.
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Read the entire article of NRC here (in Dutch).
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