POLAND, February 16, 2018 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After strongly rejecting proposed legislation that would have legalized abortion on demand and restricted the right to protest abortion, Polish legislators are now examining a proposal that would eliminate one of the few remaining reasons for which the killing of the unborn is still allowed: eugenic abortions.
The proposed legislation was rejected roundly by the country’s lower legislative house, the Sejm. The bill’s main proponent denied the humanity of the unborn child.
“An acorn is not an oak, an egg is not a hen, and a conglomerate of cells is not a child,” said Barbara Nowacka prior to the first vote on the bill.
Deputies from the ruling conservative Law and Justice Party reportedly shouted “shame” and pounded their desks. They then voted down the “Let’s Save Women” bill.
In a previous speech, to an almost empty Sejm, Nowacka complained, “we have entire provinces where citizens are denied access to their rights” because of the right of doctors to refuse to perform abortions due to issues of conscience.
The Law and Justice Party’s response to the bill was to observe that it legalized “killing children” and “infanticide,” which violates the Polish constitution’s guarantee “to all the legal protection of life.”
However, the Sejm decided to continue work on the proposed bill called Stop Abortion, which would prohibit the killing of unborn children for eugenics purposes. The Let’s Save Women bill was created to counteract Stop Abortion, which has much stronger support, both in the Sejm and among Polish citizens generally. Over 800,000 have signed a petition in support of the bill, which began as a civic initiative.
Eugenic abortions to eliminate children with deformities and disabilities have brought about the almost total elimination of children with Down Syndrome in Western countries, where more than 90% of such children are killed in the womb.
“There is no need to explain to anyone what barbarity eugenic abortion is,” said Deputy Kaja Godek on the floor of the Sejm.
“The Polish health service dealing with a pregnant woman and her child is now forced to search for sick children. The original idea behind prenatal tests has been completely distorted. Instead of treating and preparing parents and doctors to receive a child and help him, he makes it easier to choose extermination.”
Poland’s Catholic bishops are strongly supporting the legislation.
“I hope that the parliamentarians, referring to their own conscience, will try to first keep the promises that have been made, and then to respect the right to life of every person,” said, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, chairman of the Polish bishops’ conference.
Although most abortions were made illegal in Poland in 1993 after the predominantly Catholic country’s liberation from communist rule, the killing of unborn children remains legal in four circumstances: a perceived threat to the mother’s health from the pregnancy according to physicians, pregnancy from rape, pregnancy from incest, and finally, in cases in which the unborn child is malformed.
The Catholic Church teaches that the direct taking of any innocent human life is intrinsically evil, that is, evil in itself.
“Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church.