The Polish Constitutional Court considers the right to abortion

The Polish Constitutional Court is examining Thursday, October 22, the right to abortion in this reputedly very Catholic country where access to abortion is already among the most limited in Europe.

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The deputies of the ultra-Catholic nationalist party in power wish to suppress the right to abortion in the event of serious malformation of the fetus, one of the rare reasons still allowing the women to terminate the pregnancy in this member country of the EU.

Large numbers of women and women's rights organizations have already protested against legal attempts to toughen the law, but the Covid-19 pandemic has complicated mobilization.

Abortions limited to the maximum

The Constitutional Court, reformed by the Government of Law and Justice (PiS), has since often been accused of having in its ranks a number of judges loyal to this party.

President Andrzej Duda had also said in the past in favor of the new restriction.

Read also: Why has the number of abortions increased for 30 years?

The court's decision in accordance with PiS's wishes will restrict the right to abortion only to cases of danger to death for the pregnant woman and pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.

The NGO Akcja Demokracja (Action Democracy), said it had collected more than 210,000 signatures against the toughening of the law in force.

According to official data, Poland, a country of 38 million inhabitants, recorded in 2019 only around 1,100 cases of abortion.

The number of abortions performed clandestinely in Poland or in foreign clinics could reach nearly 200,000 per year.