The president of Poland's Bishops Conference has rejected a European Parliament resolution condemning a Supreme Court ban on “eugenic abortions” which has provoked protests in Poland and abroad.
“In both ethics and international law, there is no such thing as a right to abortion – nor in any democratic legal order is there any right to kill an innocent person,” said Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki. “The right to life is a fundamental human right, which always takes precedence over the right to choose.”
The 71-year-old archbishop was reacting to the Strasbourg-based Parliament's 26 November resolution, which condemned the Polish court ruling as “a new attack on the rule of law and fundamental rights” and warned of possible European Union sanctions.
He said the resolution had cited numerous international human rights instruments, including the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, signed in 2000, but had overlooked the Charter's enshrining of the right to life and barring of “eugenic practices” , which included the aborting of damaged foetuses.
“The EU thus recognises that the human person's inalienable dignity and respect for the right to life constitute the basic criteria of democracy and the rule of law,” added Archbishop Gadecki. “There can be no compromise in this discussion of human life. Although regulations on protecting human life remain outside the EU's competence, as the European Commission has repeatedly pointed out, the EU could still do a lot to increase protection of the right to life of every conceived child.”
Feminist and pro-choice groups have staged protests in Poland and abroad against the 22 October Supreme Court judgment, which ruled unconstitutional a clause in Poland's 1993 abortion law, allowing pregnancy terminations in cases of “ severe and irreparable foetal damage”.
In its resolution, the European Parliament said up to 200,000 women terminated pregnancies annually in Poland with paid clandestine abortions “without the necessary professional medical supervision and advice”, while up to 30,000 were estimated to forced to travel abroad “to receive the healthcare they need and seek an abortion”.
It added that the latest restrictions would “ ead to the expansion of clandestine, unsafe abortion and abortion tourism... thus undermining women's health and rights and putting their lives at risk”. Poland's Federation of Pro-Life Movements, which welcomed the October Court ruling, vigorously rejects these figures and conclusions.
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