Abortions for eugenic reasons are unconstitutional and illegal, a top court in Poland ruled on Thursday.
The Polish Constitutional Tribunal said the provision allowing “abortion in the case of a high probability of severe and irreversible impairment of the fetus or an incurable disease that threatens the fetus” up until 24 weeks, is inconsistent with the Polish Constitution which grants “every human being with legal protection of life” under Article 38.
The ruling will mean an almost total ban of abortions in Poland, with the exception of rape or incest, or if the mother’s health is at risk.
The 1993 law allowing the abortion of babies with disabilities currently accounts for 98% of all abortions carried out in Poland.
Abortion advocates, such as Malgorzata Szulecka, a lawyer for the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, told BBC News the decision to recognize the humanity of the unborn is “inhuman.”
“It’s inhuman, it’s despicable honestly to make anyone carry a pregnancy to term, especially if the foetus is malformed,” she said.
According to Life Site News, last year 1,074 sick babies were aborted in Poland, including 435 children with Down syndrome, a number that has multiplied with each passing year.
In 2017, actor and Special Olympian Frank Stephens delivered a powerful testimony on Capitol Hill, urging the US federal government to fund research that would help people with Down syndrome, rather than opting for prenatal testing and selective abortions.
“Sadly, across the world, a notion is being sold that maybe we don’t need research concerning Down Syndrome,” Stephens said. “Some people say prenatal screens will identify Down Syndrome in the womb and those pregnancies will just be terminated.
“It’s hard for me to sit here and say those words,” he added. “I completely understand that the people pushing this particular “final solution” are saying that people like me should not exist. That view is deeply prejudice by an outdated idea of life with Down Syndrome.”
