Too much is too much - take two

I have been writing mostly book reviews in the recent months. This is perhaps because my life has been rather sedentary lately. First, I had to recover from a heart procedure and then I was nursing a cold that continued longer than I would have thought average. This imposed some restriction and reading was the best thing I could do. The thing is that I also liked it. When I was a child I liked to have a cold, to be excused from school, get my mother attention the way I was not getting it when healthy and I could read without feeling guilty. I still remember the pleasure of resting in a freshly made bed. In Poland, at the time of my youth, it meant starched and beautifully ironed sheets and the big fluffy pillows of the triple size to the Australian size of pillows. It was so comfortable, and my mother leaning over me touching my feverish cheeks with her cool and soft hand. She smelled so good…

Now, that I have to take care of myself in the situations when I am not well it is not that good and I do not have any incentive to prolong my illnesses. There is still this feeling of freedom of reading without any need to tidy up or do my taxes. The duties have to wait.

So, I have been reading more than I usually do and I have been listening to Polish news extensively. The later is rather self-destructive in the current political situation. I have not been writing about it as I wanted to suppress the feeling of sadness and desperation. This was a regular self-denial maybe connected with auto-censorship.

My previous post was titled “Too much is too much”. Different subject but the same sentiments. I woke up today with the profound feeling of sadness and realization that Poland I carry in my heart is about to perish. Just to be really pathetic, there is the link to what I have just written to the first words of the Polish anthem:

Poland has not yet perished,

So long as we still live

Well, so maybe not all is lost yet, but I am in a need to suppress the knowledge of recent Polish antics. How I will do it? I do not know yet. One thing is to stop listening to the Polish radio.

Now, that I have offloaded a little bit my depressing emotions, I will try to systemise my thoughts.

The current ruling party is not a party I would support. The leadership of the party is clever though. The cleverness, combined with ruthlessness, lack of respect for law and truth, nationalism, raging Catholicism, bigotry and much more I consider negative, lead to the party unprecedented supremacy in the Polish political world. The situation, that there has been in Poland for the past two years, put questions in front of many Poles that required taking the blinkers off. I am among those people. It has become obvious that the party, I had supported in the past, created the situation in which a take over of power was possible and actually necessary.  It was unavoidable and the politicians wrapped up in their own interest and egos were slowly cooked up like the proverbial frog that was cooked to death without realising the slow increase of the water temperature. So, the opposition has been cooked for a while and did not show any positive initiatives for quite some time.

And yesterday, was the day in the parliament when all hopes for a potential change of power were removed and removed by the opposition itself. The issue concerns women and their rights to termination of unwanted pregnancy. The Polish abortion law is restrictive in this respect.

Abortion in Poland is illegal except in cases of rape, when the woman's life is in jeopardy, or if the fetus is irreparably damaged.

In Europe, only Malta and Ireland have their abortion laws more restrictive than Poland. In addition to the restrictive law, many doctors have discovered their own CONSCIOUS. And this does not allow them to carry on any terminations or even to help their patients to find an alternative doctor whose conscience would allow to carry on the procedure. I am talking here about women who could lose their own life and leave a little child orphaned by design of the conscientious doctor.  Or a child who would not be able to live outside of the mother’s womb and she will still have to carry the child for all the months knowing the tragic outcome. I am not dramatizing here, there was such a case some months ago in Poland and the child was dying in pain for some days before its unavoidable early death. I better stop giving example as my stomach turns and the blood boils.

I am very upset with doctors who have “their conscience”. They say, they cannot intervene with God’s design. I am wondering what medicine actually is if not intervening in God’s design. And why women are taken away the ability to have their own conscience? Instead, the politicians decide what is good for them.

Obviously, I am very emotional about the whole issue, this may even mean that I have some blind spots. Possibly, but does not seem likely…

So, why I decided to vent my views on the subject today? Yesterday, during the parliament session a new proposal to relax the abortion law was presented and voted against with a great involvement of the opposition. A number of opposition politicians voted against the new project, some did not vote even if present, some did not show up at all. And the project was voted out.

For a change, another project to make the law even more restrictive (forbid the abortion regardless circumstances???) was voted to proceed.

I lost the remnants of my respect and trust for the opposition and I do not see in Poland a party I could vote for and I can not see how the current party could possibly lose the next election or two. There is no a leader to rescue the situation in site. To me, there is no hope, no opposition to the current ruling - only chaos. I am hoping that the country reached the rock bottom and now the only way is up.