Norway must withhold EEA funds from Poland – VG

Poland already has one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. In a country of 38 million inhabitants, about a thousand legal abortions are performed annually. In Norway, the number is approx. 12 times higher, but the abortion rate is still considered low, with fewer than 10 per 1,000 women ages 15 to 49, according to FHI. With a similar abortion rate, in comparison, approximately 80,000 abortions would be performed annually in Poland.

In unholy alliance with the conservative wing of the country’s church and right-wing extremist militants, the ruling “Law and Justice Party” (PiS) is trying to enforce an abortion law so strict that the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights qualifies it as “a violation of human rights”.

Under the new provisions, which repeal one of the few exceptions that have so far granted the right to legal abortion, women will be forced to give birth even when the fetus is known to be unviable. So far, almost all abortions in Poland have been authorized in a section similar to the so-called 2c in the Norwegian abortion law.

Thus, the Polish legal authority has also covered everything from chromosomal defects to situations where the fetus is damaged and will not be able to survive outside the womb. Only in cases where the pregnancy is due to rape, or when the woman’s life is in danger, will the abortion be legal.

Doctors who still recommend or perform abortions in violation of the new legislation will be prosecuted. The punishment also awaits those who are providing information about places where safe abortions can be performed, which help them financially or with transportation in this regard. One consequence of the ban will be that women who do not have the opportunity to travel abroad for an abortion will seek local opportunities to have the procedure. This in itself means greater health risks, but it will also greatly affect those with the worst advice.

The hardening of the abortion law is part of the series of hardening and unification that the reactionary PiS government has implemented since it took power in 2015. Through politicized reforms of the judicial system, they have used their majority to override the minority with new laws on a case-by-case basis. They have restricted freedom of expression, cracked down on media opposing PiS, then enacted laws that explicitly frame homosexuals, and generally weakened the basic legal certainty on which civilized societies normally rely. .

However, the popular uprising in Poland indicates that the PiS government has gone too far. Less than 15 percent of the population supports the new legislation.

Norway transfers almost NOK 9 billion. in EEA funds to Poland. Like the EU, the Norwegian authorities should send a clear message to Warsaw that conditions will be imposed on subsequent payments. Norway cannot co-finance an oppressive illiberal regime in this way.