Hundreds of people ignored the ban on gathering more than 10 people due to the coronavir pandemic and gathered in front of the Constitutional Court on Thursday night.
The protesters then went to the headquarters of the ruling conservative law and justice party. Police later blocked their way as the crowd tried to reach the house of party leader Yaroslav Kaczynski, resulting in minor clashes.
Smaller protests have also taken place in other Polish cities, local media reported.
The Polish Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that abortion due to an embryonic defect is illegal under the constitution.
The court’s decision is equivalent to a ban on abortion, as the condition rejected by the court is the basis for almost all legal abortions in Poland.
The Court stated that this condition violated the constitutional protection of everyone’s life.
The court’s decision was immediately condemned by the Council of Europe, which Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic called it a day of sadness for women’s rights.
“Depriving almost all legal abortions in Poland is tantamount to a ban and a violation of human rights,” Mijatovic said on Twitter.
She said the court’s decision would encourage illegal abortions and abortions abroad.
Since 1993, abortions have been allowed in Poland only in cases where the pregnancy has occurred as a result of rape or incest, and in cases where the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life or the embryo is deformed.
The court’s decision may lead to the adoption of a bill banning abortion in cases where defects are found in the embryo.
Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice party backed the bill earlier this year, but faced public opposition and decided to refer the matter to the Constitutional Court.
The tribunal, whose main publication is to ensure the constitutionality of the law, was reformed in 2016, and critics believe that the court is now dominated by supporters of the ruling party.
Former liberal Polish Prime Minister and critic of the ruling party, Donald Tusk, has said that tackling abortion during a pandemic is an unfair political act.
“Throwing the issue of abortion and pseudo-sentencing in the middle of a pandemic is more than cynical,” Tusk said on Twitter.
Law and Justice ally Polish President Andrzej Duda has announced that if parliament approves the bill, he will sign it.
In Poland, with a population of 38 million, fewer than 2,000 abortions are performed legally per year, while women’s organizations estimate that around 200,000 abortions are performed illegally or abroad.
The “Law and Justice” government’s attempts to tighten the abortion law in 2016 led to widespread protests and the government had to abandon the idea.
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On the photo you see Małgorzata Tracz, MP and co-chair of the Polish Green Party and Marek Kossakowski, a former co-chair of the same party, Partia Zieloni.
“The tribunal, whose main publication is to ensure the constitutionality of the law, was reformed in 2016, and critics believe that the court is now dominated by supporters of the ruling party.” – it is not true, not “critics believe”… The president of the Constitutional Court is not even a juge, but a former diplomate close to the governing party, doing just what Kaczynski tells her. Two significant personalities of the PIS party, both former PIS MPs , were also nominated to the court. All the new “judges” nominated since 2015 are close to the rulling party and doing what Kaczynski wants. The rules of setting up the composition of the Court for each case, based on a hazard, are not applied any more, it is the new President that affects the cases to the judges as she wants. It’s not “critics believe” it’s just the fact that nobody in the rulling party denies, they are simply loughing with all the arogance: “we were elected, people gave us power, we do what we want”.