How pro-life is Poland? In the recent weeks, the fight to loosen the abortion restrictions is raging, but Poland continues to be one of the most conservative and Catholic countries. It has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in all of Europe, but due to the recent outrage, these laws are facing many tests.
This past Thursday, a Constitutional Tribunal in Poland ruled all abortions due to fetal defects to be unconstitutional. These kinds of abortions performed on unborn children with abnormalities make up 98% of the rare legal abortions in Poland. So, tightening the restrictions on these would drastically decrease the already small number of abortions that occur.
In the ruling, the president of the tribunal, Julia Przylebska, said that if they allowed abortion in cases of fetal abnormality they would be allowing, “eugenic practices with regard to an unborn child, thus denying it the respect and protection of human dignity.” The passing of this law caused extreme outrage and utter chaos throughout Poland, but is a large win for the pro-life community and Poland’s next generation.
Throughout this week abortion activists have been forcing their way into Polish Catholic Churches to protest this court ruling. The Daily Mail reports that on Sunday, a number of churches across Poland were vandalized by these radicals. They rushed into the churches chanting, “We’ve had enough,” and “barbarians,” and graffitied phrases such as “Woman’s’ Hell,” on the walls. Similar to the protests America has experienced, these protesters will often stop at little or nothing to get their points across.
Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki is the pastor at one of the violated churches. This past Sunday he attempted to explain to his people how the church must act in response to this. “For her part, the Church cannot cease to defend life, nor can she fail to proclaim that every human being must be protected from conception until natural death,” the archbishop acknowledged. “On this point, the Church, as Pope Francis often says, cannot compromise, because it would be guilty of the culture of rejection that is so widespread today, always affecting the most needy and vulnerable.” These poignant words are inspirational to Catholics and pro-lifers not only in Poland, but those fighting for life, and those who should do more to fight for life, around the world.
Last week, BBC reported that the police arrested fifteen of the protesters on Thursday who began throwing stones at windows. They then began trying to break through the police blockade, because of which the police had to start pepper spraying. Not only this, but across Poland many of these protesters have broken coronavirus violations, and some have been arrested.
These feminist groups are planning more protests for this week, and the following week, but the law has already been passed and will hopefully save thousands of lives each year. We must continue to pray that America will take the cue from Poland and tighten the restrictions on abortion until it is no longer legal, and all Americans have their God-given right to life from the moment of conception until natural death.