Poland court ruling effectively bans legal abortions

A constitutional tribunal in Poland ruled on Thursday that abortions for fetal abnormalities violate the country’s Constitution, effectively imposing a near-total ban in a nation that already had some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe.

The debate over a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, a divisive issue in a staunchly Roman Catholic country, mirrors the bitter polarization of a society caught between traditional religious values and more liberal ideas.

Before the decision, which cannot be appealed, Poland permitted terminations only for fetal abnormalities, a threat to a woman’s health or in the case of incest or rape.

But in practice, the overwhelming majority of legal abortions — 1,074 of 1,100 performed last year — are as a result of fetal abnormalities.

Abortion rights advocates say those numbers reflect the restrictions already in effect, which make it all but impossible for Polish women to obtain a legal abortion, prompting them to seek illegal abortions or go abroad.

“In practice it takes weeks, sometimes months,” to obtain a legal abortion, said Karolina Wieckiewicz, a lawyer and activist with the rights group Abortion Without Borders. “Some people decide to risk the battle in Poland; others look for alternatives.”

The government has been at loggerheads with the European Union, of which Poland is a member, over minority and women’s rights. It has also been criticized for compromising the independence of the judiciary, including the constitutional tribunal, which is supposed to be the main check on the governing party. But the bloc has been failed to tame Poland’s illiberal drift.

“The European Union does not want to get involved,” said Barbara Nowacka, an opposition lawmaker who co-wrote a letter to the tribunal’s president, Julia Przylebska, appealing to her conscience. “We are left to fend for ourselves, with a barbarian law.”

Women’s rights advocates say that the tribunal’s decision will in some cases force women to give birth to terminally ill children and will amount to an effective ban on abortion — something the government has not been able to accomplish through legislation.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the governing Law and Justice party and Poland’s most powerful politician, has repeatedly promised to tighten access to legal abortions.

“I would really like this kind of abortion to be at least restricted to the most extreme cases,” Kaczynski said of fetal abnormalities in an interview this year with Polish news outlets this year.