Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by puszczyk 909 days ago
> Ironically under the Soviet Union Poland was one of the first Countries in the whole Europe (and probably the World) to have legal abortion

>> the law was first introduced in the Russian SFSR in 1920

Poland was never part of the Soviet Union. It became socialist and part of the eastern block only after WW2, so I doubt the legal abortion date.

Also I mean, yeah the eastern block was quite progressive in some ways, but human rights were not one of them. Some of the gain were hugely offset by the millions of people who were tortured and killed by the system. Also much more blood thirsty in the Soviet Union than in Communist Poland.

1 comments

Quoting here

In 1932 the new Penal Code legalised abortion only when there were medical reasons and, for the first time in Europe, when the pregnancy resulted from a criminal act. This made Poland the first country in Europe outside the Soviet Union to legalize abortion in cases of rape and threat to maternal health.

In 1920 Lenin legalized abortion in the Russian Federation, not in Poland.

> but human rights were not one of them

Poland has major human rights issues right now, in 2023, as a member of the EU.

Stricter laws about the abortion rights have started popping up in 2011 and the latest reform is from 2021. They are quite bad, they basically abolished abortion for 98% of the cases it was performed and for the rest of the cases the waits are so long that it becomes virtually impossible.