Polish court ruling amounts to almost total ban on abortion

Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has ruled that abortion due to foetal defects is unconstitutional, banning the most common of the few legal grounds for pregnancy termination in the predominantly Catholic country.

Woman’s rights activist and co-founder of All-Poland’s Women Strike, Marta Lempart (left) argues with a pro-life supporter as a protest and counter-protest took place prior to the Polish Constitutional Tribunal issuing its decision on abortion. Photo: AFP / NurPhoto

After the ruling goes into effect, abortion will be only be permissible in Poland in the case of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s health and life, which make up only around 2 percent of legal terminations conducted in recent years.

“(A provision which) legalises eugenic practices in the field of the right to life of an unborn child and makes the right to life of an unborn child dependent on his or her health, … is inconsistent … with the constitution,” said Julia Przylebska, head of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Conservative values have played a growing role in public life in Poland since the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) came into power five years ago on a promise to defend what it sees as the nation’s traditional, Catholic character.

Curbing access to abortion has been a long-standing ambition of the party, but it has stepped back from previous legislative proposals amid widespread public backlash.

A group of right-wing lawmakers asked the Tribunal to rule on the legality of aborting foetuses with abnormalities in December 2019.

“Today Poland is an example for Europe, it’s an example for the world,” said Kaja Godek, a member of the “Stop Abortion” public initiative, a separate group.

Women’s rights and opposition groups reacted with dismay.

“The worst-case scenario that could have come true has come true. It is a devastating sentence that will destroy the lives of many women and many families,” said lawyer Kamila Ferenc who works with an NGO helping women denied abortion. “It will especially force the poor to give birth to children against their will. Either they have no chance of surviving, or they have no chance of an independent existence, or they will die shortly after giving birth.”

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, called it a “sad day for women’s rights”.

“Removing the basis for almost all legal abortions in Poland amounts to a ban and violates human rights. Today’s ruling of the Constitutional Court means underground/abroad abortions for those who can afford and even greater ordeal for all others.”

Politicized courts?

Critics say the Constitutional Tribunal may have acted on the party’s behalf. While the Tribunal is nominally independent, most of its judges have been appointed by PiS, leading it to be dubbed a “pseudo-tribunal” by some.

“To throw in the subject of abortion and produce a ruling by a pseudo-tribunal in the middle of a raging pandemic is more than cynicism. It is political wickedness,” said Donald Tusk, the president of the European People’s Party and a former prime minister of Poland.

Poland’s opposition said the tribunal was carrying out the political will of the ruling party leader, specifically.

PiS denies trying to influence the court or taking advantage of the pandemic to push through the changes.

Abortion rights activists say access to the procedure was often declined in recent years in Poland even in cases when it would be legal.

Many doctors in Poland, which already had some of the strictest abortion rules in Europe, exercise their legal right to refuse to terminate pregnancies on religious grounds. Some say they are pressured into doing so by their superiors.

Maria Kurowska, an MP with United Poland, a party in the ruling coalition with Law and Justice said: “We are glad with what the Constitutional Tribunal ruled because one can not kill a child for being sick. This is not a foetus, it is a child.”

– Reuters