What Really Happened With Agata? Here's What *Didn't* Happen

It's very difficult to piece everything together. There's a prolife and a prochoice version of the story.

But this month a 14 year old girl in Poland, identified in the press only by the pseudonym "Agata," had an abortion after being raped by a boy at her school and becoming pregnant.

Public furor raged over whether or not the girl had the individual right to have the abortion. Much has been made of the role of a prominent prochoice advocacy group in arranging the abortion, and about the prolife activists who sought to dissuade the young woman from having an abortion. Each enemy camp has accused the other of besieiging and pressuring her.

What really happened? I don't know, and there are a lot of things here that only time can tell, and some things that the world may never know. But it's very clear what *didn't* happen.

There has been no evidence that these selfsame interest groups are bombarding the rapist with their attentions, or imploring church and state re: his deed.

No evidence that anyone is focusing on the urgent need for boys and men to stop treating girls and women as disposable, inert pieces of meat, and finally learn to treat us as the inviolate, sacred beings all of us human beings are.

No one questions the one who committed the rape, let alone the deeply entrenched social institutions (not simply in Poland but everywhere) making his crime possible and keeping him under the radar, while national and global fury surrounds his two victims, the young woman and the child she conceived through his violence.

No one questions the violence behind the abortion. (Is there any clearer evidence that violence begets violence?)

As if rape were an eternal verity, an inevitability: either girls and women must have access to (the no matter how heart-shattering, lifetaking procedure of) abortion because there is rape and therefore abortion for always and forever...or the flip side of this: girls and women must endure, endure, endure the Salvific Pain of carrying children whose biological fathers are rapists.

Once again, males and masculinist institutions escape accountability for their crimes. And who takes the brunt of their actions?

Why, the same human beings who always are expected to take it. And take it, and take it, and take it, world without end....

No one is even asking, why didn't this young woman get the prompt emergency treatment all raped women need, including emergency contraception--what stopped that from happening? But that's too close to the crux of the matter: why the hell is there rape and why the hell is it allowed to continue...?

Polish Prolifers Decry Tax Hike on Baby Clothes

According to a report by Joanna Najfeld of Polskie Radio's External Service, Polish prolifers are protesting the European Commission's demand for Poland to increase the tax on baby clothes from 7% to 22%.

Paweł Wościcki from Polska Federacja Ruchów Obrony Życia, the Polish Federation of Pro-Life Movements, has appealed to Prime Minister Donald Tusk to oppose the tax hike, pointing out that

In a recent report, the European Union said that as many as 26% of children in Poland are in danger of poverty. This is more than in other EU countries. Why then, does the European Union want to make it more difficult for the families by telling Poland to increase the tax on baby articles? Especially since in other European countries, such as Great Britain, the tax on baby clothes is 0 percent. The British have higher incomes and levels of poverty are much lower.

I wish my Polish language skills were better--then I could delve further into why the Federation has taken on this issue. Is it that ultranationalistic paranoia which, somehow, absurdly equates the EU with genuine occupiers of Poland like the Kulturkampf Prussians, the Mein Kampf Nazis, and the Soviets? A stance that, like the one so prevalent in the States, links prolife to "family values" and tax cuts instead of a serious, substantive government commitment to a comprehensive social welfare system?

I can only hope that the Federation is motivated to ease hardships for impoverished families and thus to alleviate pressures towards abortion.

On World Day Against the Death Penalty, and Poland vs. the European Union

Today is the World Day Against the Death Penalty. The United Nations General Assembly is presently considering a resolution in support of a worldwide moratorium on this brutal practice.

Please visit the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and sign the petition in favor of the UN resolution.

Much has been made in English-speaking media of the Polish government's refusal to join the European Union in observing this day. Poland objects that it is hypocritical to oppose the death penalty while supporting rights to abortion and euthanasia.

Being proudly of Polish blood myself, the descendant of Poles who left their homeland because it was occupied by hostile forces...I decidedly do not want to join in the undercurrent of "there go those backward, unwashed, anti-modern Polish bozos again" that characterizes some responses to this protest.

That much said...I think the Polish government would bear much more effective and credible witness to the indivisibility of human rights if:

(1) It left off its own attempts to overturn its current ban on the death penalty and

(2) It joined in the death penalty abolition day, while simultaneously bearing witness to the interconnectedness of all right to life issues...including women's rights to life and abundant life.

I wrote the following letter to Polskie Radio in Warszawa/Warsaw. I'm speaking here as a Polish American, a world citizen, someone who has lost people to violent crime, someone with loved ones whose family member was wrongfully convicted and almost executed, someone who stands in solidarnosc/solidarity with the African Americans in my predominantly Black neighborhood...among other heartfelt things...

It is not an imposed, secular European value to stand up for lives on
death row.

It is not a matter of defending traditonal Polish Catholic values to stand
up for lives in the womb and the lives of disabled and sick persons.

For people of all nations, for people of all religions and none---it is a
matter of *universal human rights* to stand up for every life, before,
during, and ever after birth.

Prolife and Prochoice: A Chance to Work Together (Part Two)

Part One of this post series tells the story of Alicja Tysiac. She is a disabled single mother in Poland who struggles to take care of herself and her three children on a state disability pension of 140 Euros/~190 US Dollars per month. Yes, there are people in the world living on much less, but that is a fraction of what the average Pole has to live on, this is still deep poverty, and no person in any country deserves this (let alone less than this).

Whether you are prolife, prochoice, or something else, you can take these concrete, practical steps to help Alicja and her children--as well as other human beings in similarly difficult situations.

1. Send Alicja and her children a financial gift.

--You can do this from many countries through Western Union.
--At the Western Union website, name your recipient as "Alicja Tysiac, Warsaw, Poland" and send your donation in zlotys or PLN.
--Immediately send an email to Elwira Chrusciel, info@astra.org.pl. On behalf of the nongovernmental organization ASTRA, Ms. Chrusciel will notify Alicja of your wired gift. She is also glad to answer any questions you may have about Alicja and her situation.

Note: ASTRA is a prochoice feminist organization; Nonviolent Choice is prolife feminist. But we are glad to cooperate with them on these substantial areas of shared concern.

2. Speak up and act for ALL families in Poland who deal with poverty, disability, and/or single motherhood.

--Write a letter to Roman Giertych, Poland's Deputy Minister and Minister of Education:

Roman Giertych, Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej, Al. Szucha 25, 00-918 Warszawa, Poland

(Sorry; couldn't find a fax number or email address. If you have one, by all means, do tell!)

--The proper salutation is "Dear Minister."

--Please make the following points in your letter, politely but firmly.

• Minister Giertych, even though you disagree with Alicja Tysiac's lawsuit against the Polish government, surely you can understand that she and her children, like any other human beings, deserve far more than the tiny pension they struggle to live on. No one deserves such poverty.
• All families in Poland who face poverty because of disability, single motherhood, and/or unemployment deserve at the very least a public commitment (in deed, not merely word)to giving them with the Polish equivalent of a "living wage."
• Minister Giertych, you profess to be prolife. However, does prolife begin at conception and end at birth? Adequate pensions for people like Alicja Tysiac and her family are prolife in at least two ways. They actively express respect for the lives of vulnerable Polish citizens, and in many, many situations, they can relieve the very problems that cause women to consider having abortions.

Note: A future action alert here will take on Giertych's homophobia and hostility to contraception for those whose beliefs permit it. These are also stances that in our opinion equally sabotage his professed commitment to prolife. However, for the time being, a short letter focused on the single issues of adequate pensions is most likely to have an impact.

3. If you are from another country besides Poland: speak up and act for ALL families in your country who deal with poverty, disability, and/or single motherhood.

--Families in these situations everywhere tend to have unnecessary, preventable difficulties, although their precise nature and the amounts and kinds of available social supports can vary from country to country. Try looking through the Nonviolent Choice Directory (direct URL http://www.nonviolentchoice.info)for ideas on how you personally can take other global and local actions.

4. Email this action alert to at least two other people you know!

With thanks for all you can do!

Part One of this post tells the story of Alicja Tysiac, a Polish woman who is disabled and the single mother of three children. Despite medical expenses she cannot afford, she struggles to take care of herself on a government pension of 140 Euros/~190 USD per month--a fraction of the average Polish income.

Here is a step you are some steps that you can take to help Alicja and her children.

Send a gift of money through Western Union in zlotys.

Then immediately email Elwira Chrusciel at info@astra.org.pl She is with the orgnization ASTRA and can answer any questions you may have about Alicja.

ASTRA is a prochoice feminism organization, the Nonviolent Choice Directory is prolife feminist, but we agree on the need to support Alicja Tysiac and her children.

Prolife and Prochoice: A Chance to Work Together (Part One)

Now in her late 30s, Alicja Tysiac is a Polish citizen and single mother of three children. She has had eye disease since she was a young girl, and thus difficulty finding employment and (as far as I can determine) state-of-the-art preventive medical care.

In February 2000, through contraceptive failure, she became unexpectedly pregnant with her third and youngest child. Doctors told her that the pregnancy might cause her to go blind. She then sought an abortion (legal in Poland for health reasons).

Her doctors at the public hospital declined to perform the abortion. I don't know if, after declining to perform the abortion, they offered her the utmost help for her and her child during and after the pregnancy. If they didn't, they utterly, miserably failed their responsibilities towards these two vulnerable human beings, and Tysiac's other children as well.

After giving birth to her daughter, Tysiac had a retinal hemorrhage, and now she can see only five feet (one and a half meters) in front of her. She brought a case before the European Court of Human Rights, which on March 20, 2007 ruled that she was entitled to 25,000 Euros (roughly 33,000 USD) in damages from the Polish government.

The Polish government has just appealed the decision, which means that Tysiac may not receive the compensation, or at least not for some years. Meanwhile, she and her three children continue in their chronic, longstanding poverty--like so many other single-mother families and disabled-parent families in Poland and around the world.

Whether you believe the case and the court ruling are just or unjust, whether or not you believe she had a right to abortion that was violated or that her child had a right to live...I hope we can all agree that Alicja Tysiac and her children, like any other human beings, deserve to be free of the chronic, longstanding poverty they are stuck in...and that each of us is responsible for their lives and well-being, just as we are for all human beings in parallel situations.

Tysiac is now classified as totally unemployable. In a tiny Warsaw apartment, she struggles to take care of herself and her three children on a state disability pension of 140 Euros--roughly 190 USD.

By comparison, the monthly per capita income (average income per person) in Poland is a little less than 1200 USD.

All the same, or so I have heard....the wife of a prominent Polish politician branded Alicja Tysiac an inherently unfit mother for seeking an abortion in her desperate situation---even said that Tysiac's children should be taken away from her.

Whatever different positions we may each take on abortion or on the justice/injustice of Tysiac's case before the European Court, I hope people of all views can at least agree on the following.

• Alicja Tysiac and her three children need and deserve at the very least a living wage, life-saving and life-enhancing medical care, and access to all the other social supports they each require to live and to develop to their fullest possible potentials. All disabled persons, single mothers, and their families need and deserve the same.

• Many, many women, just like Alicja did, contemplate abortion because they are in very difficult circumstances where they honestly--and understandably-- feel they have no other or better choice. It is wrong and cruel to scapegoat and point the finger at women like Alicja. A far more constructive response would be to channel that sense of outrage into fighting poverty, ableism, health care inequity, and stigmatizing discrimination against single mothers--which after all are major causes of abortion. Comprehensive public commitment to relief of these problems will help to prevent abortion, whatever law or ethics say about it.
  
  
  Whether you are prochoice, prolife, or none of the above on abortion: I hope you are moved to help Alicja Tysiac and her children, and other people in similar straits. In a forthcoming post I will offer some positive steps that you can take to do just that.