[ad_1]
A controversial ruling imposing a near-total ban on abortion in Poland will take effect imminently, the government announced, three months after the original ruling sparked the largest protests in the country’s recent history.
The announcement prompted protesters to meet again in Warsaw and other cities on Wednesday night. “We are inviting everyone, please come out, cheer up, so that we can walk together, leave a mark,” said the leader of the protest group Marta Lempart.
The ruling, handed down by the constitutional court in October, determined that the termination of pregnancies due to serious fetal abnormalities is unconstitutional. Poland already has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, and most of the small number of legal abortions that take place in the country are cases of fetal defects.
Once the sentence takes effect, abortion will only be allowed in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.
More than 400,000 people protested in hundreds of towns and cities across the country as part of a “women’s strike” after the ruling. Theoretically, the court rulings should go into effect immediately, but there have been several cases where there have been long delays for apparently political reasons, and there was a feeling that the government had been alarmed by the size of the protests and wanted backtrack on failure.
“It would be good to take time for dialogue and to find a new position in this situation, which is difficult and arouses great emotions,” Michał Dworczyk, head of the prime minister’s office, told Polish media in early November.
However, on Wednesday, the court’s justification for the ruling was published, and the government said it hoped to publish the ruling on Wednesday as well, which would officially make it law.
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has been accused of politicizing the constitutional court and using it to push forward its ultra-conservative agenda on abortion.
The delay in the publication of the ruling caused an uncomfortable situation during the last three months in which doctors who performed abortions were not sure overnight if the procedures would remain legal. Many Polish women take medical abortion pills at home, while thousands more are forced to travel abroad to seek an abortion.
Five of the 15 judges on the court disagreed with the majority opinion, although some of them only objected to the justification, not the merits of the ruling. The court ruling framed the question as defending the life of an unborn child and told Polish lawmakers that they should use the words “child” and “mother” when talking about abortions instead of “fetus” and “pregnant woman. “.
“No law-abiding government should abide by this ruling,” said Borys Budka, leader of Poland’s largest opposition party, the Civic Center Platform, Reuters reported.
