Rome, Italy, Mar 23, 2007 / 09:19 am
Various pro-life leaders have raised their voice in protest of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that obliges Poland to compensate a woman who was not allowed to obtain an abortion. The woman in question, Alicja Tysiac, wanted to abort her third child out of fear the pregnancy would aggravate her severe case of near-sightedness.
After winning the initial lawsuit, Tysiac told reporters the true motive behind her actions: she wanted abortion on demand to be legal in Poland. Currently the country allows abortion in cases of life of the mother, rape, and fetal deformation. Her case did not fall into any of these categories.
The controversial ruling by the Court has been widely rejected. Ewa Kowalewska, president of the Polish Women’s Forum, said the ruling was another attempt by European ideologues to pressure Poland to admit the existence of a “right” to abortion.
She said the Court has established that the refusal “to kill a child violates the previsions of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms” and has established a precedent for considering abortion as a “human right.”