EUROPE, 19 October 2020 - 121 parliamentarians across Europe signed a joint call to action voicing concern about the situation in Poland with regards to women's rights, access to health care and the rule of law.
A group of parliamentarians within the ruling PiS party have sent a petition to Poland's "Constitutional Tribunal" to rule on the constitutionality of the country’s abortion law. On 22 October, the Constitutional Tribunal (currently under investigation regarding rule of law infringement under Article 7 of the EU Treaties) is therefore expected to issue a ruling which would likely ban abortion in the case of fatal foetal anomaly.
Separate letters were sent to:
- Mateusz Morawiecki, Polish Prime Minister
- Jarosław Kaczyński, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland
- Elżbieta Witek, Marshal of the Sejm
- Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
The letter condemns banning the possibility to abort in cases when the foetus may not be viable as a cruel measure, which goes against good medical pracice and human rights standards by depriving women of their dignity and forcing a specific course of treatment not of their choosing.
"It thus becomes clear that the infringement of the rule of law is no longer a matter of the technical functioning of the country’s judiciary system but in fact being used as a weapon to deprive certain categories of people, in this first case women, of fundamental rights to health care and human dignity."
The parliamentarians urged President von der Leyen to address this in the work of the European Commission regarding Poland’s adherence to the rule of law and urged the Polish Government to take the necessary steps to ensure respect for the fundamental rights of all Polish women to make their own decisions regarding their own healthcare in accordance with their own moral, philosophical or religious beliefs.