Poland’s abortion rules are now among the strictest in any rich country

 The law and justice (pis) party that has governed Poland since 2015 has firm ideas about how it wants people to live. It champions the traditional family and paints gay people as a threat. Now the country’s restrictions on abortion, already among the tightest Europe, are about to become tighter. In a ruling on October 22nd the pis-controlled Constitutional Tribunal said that women would no longer be able to cite severe fetal defects as a reason for having an abortion.

Abortion is already banned in Poland. Until now there were three exceptions: when the mother’s life is in danger, in cases of rape or incest, and in cases of severe and irreversible fetal defects. Almost all the 1,000 or so abortions a year performed legally in Poland fall into the third category. In other cases, many women go abroad, often to neighbouring Germany, where terminations are much easier to obtain.

economist