Monday January 20, 2003

POLISH PRESIDENT OPPOSES REFERENDUM TO LIBERALISE ABORTION LAW

WARSAW, January 20, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski responded to a request for a referendum on abortion by opposing any changes to the country's pro-life legislation.

In 1997 the Polish high court struck down a permissive abortion law as unconstitutional. The move was later approved by Parliament. The lax abortion law, imposed by the "former" communists, allowed doctors to kill preborn children up to 12 weeks of age if the mother was deemed to face financial or emotional difficulties.

The law thus reverted to a 1993 law passed by the then Solidarity government which restricted abortion to those situations which endangers the mother's life or when pregnancy results from rape or incest. The 1993 law came after four decades of abortion on demand under communism.

See the BBC coverage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2672985.stm

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/jan/03012004.html

Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.