New assault on the right to abortion. This Thursday, November 30, 2017, anti-abortion activists tabled a draft amendment calling for the suspension of one of the criteria allowing access to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) in Poland.
Supported by Andrzej Duda (the Polish president) and by Beata Szydlo (the country’s prime minister), this proposal would, in concrete terms, eliminate the right to abortion when the fetus suffers from a malformation.
In Poland, currently, 96% of voluntary terminations of pregnancy carried out within the legal framework concern fetuses with Down’s syndrome – which represents 1041 abortions each year. Described as “eugenic abortion” by its opponents, this practice is directly targeted by the proposed amendment of the organization Zatrzymaj aborcje – “Stop abortion” in VF
100,000 to 150,000 abortions clandestine or abroad each year
“We want to amend the law in force in Poland by removing one of the three authorized criteria” explained the head of the organization (close to the Catholic Church) to our colleagues from AFP. “More than 830,000 people, a record figure, have signed up to the project. “
After Ireland and Malta, Poland has the third most restrictive abortion law in Europe. If this amendment were actually passed, Polish women would have only two options to benefit from a legal voluntary termination of pregnancy: a danger to the health of the mother, or a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.
According to some national associations, every year 100,000 to 150,000 women in Poland undergo an illegal abortion or go abroad in order to benefit from an abortion.
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