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Reproductive Rights in Poland
Globally, there are approximately 99 million unintended pregnancies and 25 million unsafe abortions every year. Many of these abortions result in needless suffering, mental anguish, social ostracization, and even death.
It may come as a surprise then that many still to this day — and despite the obvious harm illegal abortions cause — further stifle the global quest to provide women with the safety they deserve when accessing legal abortion in their home country.
The most recent case of stifled progress that has gained international attention is from Poland.
Poland has already had some of the most strict abortion laws in Europe. Women were only allowed to access abortion under these conditions:
- a fetal abnormality
- rape
- incest
- to protect the mother’s life
Because of the religious demographics in Poland, there are many social factors that also come into consideration when accessing abortion. For example, doctors in Poland can even refuse to perform legal abortions based on religious grounds. Elsewhere in the West, this seems absurd.
In October 2020, however, the situation got much worse.
The Constitutional Tribunal ruled abortion on the basis of fetal defect illegal…
