The Polish Constitutional Court ruled that abortion for medical reasons contradicts the country’s fundamental law. On October 22, the newspaper Rp announced this on its website.
The court considered the petition of 119 deputies to review the constitutionality of the provisions of the so-called anti-abortion law. The document in its current edition, as stressed by the deputy Mykolaj Pawlak, allows to terminate a pregnancy in the event of a very high probability – and not the occurrence – of severe disability or illness of the unborn child.
He recalled that back in 1997, the Constitutional Tribunal stated that since its inception, human life becomes a value protected by the constitution. This also applies to the perinatal phase.
Ensuring the protection of this stage of human life is also confirmed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Poland. The Declaration of the Rights of the Child states that a child, due to his physical and mental immaturity, requires special care and attention, in particular, proper protection by law, both before and after birth.
The full abortion case was heard by the Constitutional Tribunal. The chairman of the judicial board was the chairman of the Constitutional Tribunal, Julia Pszylembska, and the speaker was Judge Justin Piskorski.
When the decision of the highest legal authority in Poland comes into force, abortion will be allowed only because of rape, incest or a threat to the health and life of a woman. The campaign for a complete ban on abortion has been gaining momentum in Poland since 2016.
In 2019, Pope Francis announced that pregnancy should not be terminated, even if the fetus is seriously ill.