Polish pro-life activists in push to ban ‘eugenic’ abortion

A group known as the Life and Family Foundation has officially asked the country’s lower-house Speaker to register a citizens’ legislative initiative called the Stop Abortion Committee. The group aims to collect signatures of support for legislation to prohibit eugenic abortions.

According to the group, the possibility of having an abortion on account of foetal defects should be removed from Poland’s abortion law.

Kaja Godek, one of the leaders of the country’s pro-life movement, says surveys by various pollsters show that most Poles oppose eugenic abortions.

"Such a change in the law, though a small one, would save many lives," Godek said on Thursday.

She told reporters that about 1,000 of 1,044 registered abortions performed in Poland in 2015 had been due to genetic defects or foetal anomalies.

In October, President Andrzej Duda declared he would support a bill introducing tighter restrictions on abortions of foetuses with disabilities if one was passed in parliament.

Duda said Poland’s current already-conservative laws, which allow abortion in cases of rape, incest and problem foetuses, including those with Down syndrome, are "ineffective."

Last year, Poland’s parliament threw out a controversial citizens' bill proposing a total ban on abortion and jail time for women who had terminations.

Deputies voted against the bill after women in cities throughout Poland took to the streets in a so-called Black Protest. (str/pk)

Source: IAR