UN Criticizes Poland's Abortion Laws
Thursday November 11, 2004
Poland's anti-abortion laws are so strict that many are forced to seek illegal and unsafe procedures. Poland currently have a leftist government that would like to revise the laws, but the penetration of strict Catholicism throughout Polish society makes it difficult and they hope that recent UN comments on the laws may help them.
Reuters reports:
Under Polish legislation adopted in 1993, abortion is only allowed if a woman was raped, the pregnancy threatens her life or if the fetus is damaged. It replaced decades of virtually free access to abortion under communism. "These regulations have to be changed but that needs serious discussion," Cezary Mizejewski, secretary of state at the Social Affairs Ministry, told reporters Monday. "It is good that we have (the U.N.) report and it will reopen this discussion. We cannot keep to the old view that everything is fine and just close our eyes," he said.
The U.N.'s Human Rights Committee said in a review of Poland's civil and political rights that even women who were legally allowed abortions did not seem to be able to find hospitals willing to carry them out. "The Committee reiterated its deep concern about restrictive laws in Poland, which might incite women to seek unsafe, illegal abortions, with attendant risks to their life and health," last week's report said.
Right-wing Catholic groups not only oppose liberalization of abortion laws, they want them to be made more strict. They want to outlaw all abortions under any circumstances and they want abortion to be treated as murder, which presumably means that the current three-year sentence imposed on illegal abortion providers would be changed to life in prison or a death sentence.
Any Polish readers out there who can provide more information on what's going on?
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Comments
This is a really tragic situation.
I agree, this is a really tragic situation when unborn children are allowed to be dismembered and discarded. We live in a country where some of these Polish women come to have their unwanted children disposed of. It is life being killed no matter what your views on religion are.
isn’t it interesting that we are in a world crises and abortion is legal almost worldwide.Is there a cry out to Almighty God for vengeance. Wilfull murder of the innocent is one of the 4 cry outs to God.
1. I’ll bet you have no idea how many countries abortion is legal in and how many countries it is illegal in.
2. Abortion was probably legal in just about as many places 3 years ago as today, yet there was no crisis. Could that be because there is no connection?
Prove it.
Bernadette (post 3): if you are not just a fly-by troll, abortion is illegal or restricted in almost every county on earth. No surprise, those countries where it is illegal are all the most religious countries. They are also the poorest. The most violent. The least educated. Etc. The wilful murder of innocents is usually accompanied by “allahuh akbar”, or cries for godly vengeance like yours.
Greg and Edna (post 2): The restriction of condoms and birth control pills, advocated exclusively by the religious, leads to more abortions, and more unsafe abortions. Nations which have access to birth control coupled with good sex education programmes (this includes the “west” other than the USA) all have lower abortion rates. Those who claim they are “pro-life” should be the greatest proponents of birth control - but they are not, because the real issue they care about is control over the reproduction of other women, not about life, health, or the welfare of children.
Right to life is a “make them the same” con job. An unborn child can breathe. A fetus cannot. The undeserved and unearned sense of moral superiority is one of the greatest sucker baits there is.
Of all the wars, genocides, dirty power politics, psychopathic investment banking and other horrible things in the human world today, you think abortion is the main cause of the “world crisis”? Get a grip dude.