Legal abortions fall by 90% in Poland after Constitutional Court eliminates exception for fetal defects 

By Dave Andrusko

On Oct. 22, 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Court ruled that allowing abortions for “fetal defects” violated the constitutionally protected right to life. The results?

A staggering decrease of 90% in the number of abortions.

“According to a report by the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, data from the Ministry of Health shows that the number of legal abortions in the country decreased from 1,076 in 2020 to 107 in 2021 following changes to the country’s abortion law,” the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported.

“If it had not been for the change in the law about 1,000 children would have lost their lives in their mothers’ wombs in Poland, mainly due to suspected Down syndrome, said lawyer and psychologist Magdalena Korzekwa-Kaliszuk, head of the pro-life Proelio Group Foundation,” according to the CNA . 

“This means that the law is working and has allowed specific people to be saved.”

Abortion is legal now only in cases of rape, incest. or threats to the mother’s life.

Pro-abortionists dismiss the decrease, saying that women obtain illegal abortions. But Korzekwa-Kaliszuk, said that even if illegal abortions continue to take place, “Poland’s new restriction on legal abortion will save lives.”

“A good law has a positive impact on people’s attitudes. On the one hand, it reinforces the conviction that the right to life should not depend on the diagnosis of a medical condition,” she said.

“On the other hand, not being able to kill a child on eugenic grounds means that doctors will no longer have a basis for proposing or even pressuring parents to have an abortion,” said Korzekwa-Kaliszuk.

Poland is one of the few Western European nations to protect its unborn children. Anna Maria Jakubek writes that a ‘Silent Majority’ Of Poles Favour Strict Abortion Law [https://www.ibtimes.com/pandemic-closes-new-york-stores-artists-move-3090760]. 

When Communism fell, legislation protecting the right to life for the unborn was passed in Poland in 1990. However, “Poland’s Parliament created a large loophole in the law in 1996 with a law allowing abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in cases of personal or financial difficulties,” CNA reported. 

From the Vatican, Pope John Paul II condemned the move, saying “A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.” The court struck that exception down in 1997.