I hadn’t broken Poland’s abortion laws – so why was I put through hell?
IIn May, I made the decision to take abortion pills to end a pregnancy. I wasn't afraid. I have been involved in LGBTQ+ and pro-choice activism in Poland for years, I know my rights and knew I was not breaking the law. Although Poland's abortion law is strict, terminating your own pregnancy is not illegal. So, like thousands of Polish women every year, I ordered the medicines online Women help womena safe source abroad.
One evening, two weeks after taking the pills, I was at home when suddenly there was a loud banging on my front door and shouting “police!” was called.
I just got off the phone with my psychologist. It had been a stressful time and that night I had had a panic attack. I've had this before and asked my psychologist for help. She asked me about any new medications I had been taking, so I told her about the abortion pills.
She was calm and told me she was calling a paramedic. Instead she called the police. Later, the recording of her conversation with the police was leaked to the press, where she was told that I had had an abortion and was suicidal, although I specifically told her that was not the case.
I have a lot to say about my psychologist, but none of it is fit to publish, but suffice it to say that I trusted her completely and she violated that trust and our confidentiality.
When I let the police in, they did not treat me as someone whose well-being they were concerned about. They stomped through my flat with their boots, shouting and pushing me around. They said they were investigating “a crime,” without specifying what it was.
They confiscated my laptop and told me to come with them. An ambulance was waiting. I was in shock and felt like I had no choice but to go with them.
They took me to the hospital emergency department. As I sat in a corner crying, the doctors there told the police that they could take care of me and that they could leave.
This wasn't what they wanted to hear. They took me to another hospital with a gynecological department, where more police were waiting for me. All this time they never said a word about what I had done wrong.
The doctors at the second hospital seemed intimidated by the police. They were told to take my blood and do a vaginal exam. My consent didn't seem to matter. The doctor who examined me informed me that he did not want to get involved. “I don't care about any of that,” he told me.
After the investigation, the police became more aggressive. Female officers took me to a gynecologist's office and the doctor left me. They told me to undress, but I refused to take off my panties. They made me squat and cough in front of them. Why would they do this other than to scare and humiliate me?
They threatened me with a cavity search. With my back against the wall, crying and naked except for my panties, I felt like a hunted animal. I shouted at them, “What do you actually want from me?”
I was left exhausted but angry. A few weeks later I decided to make public what happened to me. I thought I would rather stand my ground and take the government's blow than cower. I gave interviews to newspapers and television channels about how the police had treated me. This unleashed hell.
'Abortion' is a magic word in Poland: it provokes huge reactions. In the weeks that followed, the entire country felt they had permission to debate my uterus and my mental health.
At first there were articles accusing me of exaggerating or lying. The police said they came to my apartment because I was suicidal. Then politicians, journalists and social media started saying I was mentally unstable. It felt surreal to see me being discussed like that on TV.
Nude photos that I had published as part of my work as a performance artist were spread on the Internet to claim that I was a deviant and a Satanist.
The story continued to escalate, fueled by conspiracy theories. People said I was a man, the whole story was fake or that I didn't even exist. For my safety, I had to leave my house for a while.
The state media in particular became obsessed. I think someone thought I was a threat. They devoted an entire segment on evening television to me and my lawyer, who they claimed was lying. Because my surname was never made public – although a politician later leaked it – dozens of headlines appeared calling me “Pani Joanna (Mrs. Joanna) from Krakow,” implying that I am unreliable and unstable. I had become a character onto whom everyone projected their own ideas.
I decided to reclaim her. In my art I take on different characters; male and female. I treat gender roles as acting roles and I treat Pani Joanna the same way.
The title of my latest photography series is “Pani Joanna from Krakow… (fill in the blank)”. I invited people to fill in the title themselves. For some, Pani Joanna is a very courageous woman – a hero. To others, she is mentally unhinged. To others, she is still evil.
I'm not Pani Joanna, but six months after that knock on the door, I'm proud of how she has shaken up the discourse. She forced everyone – including conservative politicians – to acknowledge that terminating your own pregnancy is not illegal.
In my country, many women did not know that they could not be criminalized for their abortions. Abortion laws kill women. Politicians talked about changing our laws in the run-up to the election. It became a bargaining chip. Now that they are about to form a government, they are silent on this issue.
I paid a high price for my speech, but I was given a platform from which I could loudly refuse to agree with the authorities' intimidation tactics. If my story reached just one woman who didn't know her rights, then it was all worth it. I refuse to be silenced.