POLAND: Abortion Made Easy

Just after Christmas, Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Poland's Roman Catholic primate, preached a sermon in Warsaw that could be read last week as defiance in advance. The cardinal spoke of "maternity wards which have become mortuaries," and said that "the doctor should continue to be a doctor, a defender of life, not a gravedigger and murderer." But as far as Poland's government was concerned, the nation's 1,000 abortion clinics (or clinics for "interrupted pregnancy") were not doing enough of a job. The government is alarmed about Poland's birth rate, the highest of any large nation in Europe. In 1959 "private" abortions in Poland rose to an estimated 800,000. Last week, denouncing the public clinics for excessive bureaucracy, the government announced new streamlined procedures to put public abortion within the reach of all. From now on, a Polish woman who wants the operation needs only declare verbally to a doctor that she cannot afford the child. If the doctor refuses, she can appeal his decision and, in cases of extreme stubbornness, have him prosecuted.