Polish protests for fake ‘abortion rights’ are a betrayal of women: pro-life campaigner

November 13, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Protestors in Poland championing “pro-abortion fake rights” are an “attack on womanhood” and a “betrayal mothers, when they need support the most,” pro-life campaigner Maria Madise told a Polish pro-life conference this week.

Madise, director of Voice of the Family, told the Women’s Rights Conference that it would be “difficult to overestimate the significance” of the the recent ruling by the the Polish Constitutional Tribunal that eugenic abortion violates the Polish Constitution.

Madise said the response of pro-abortion groups was “mobilize women to renew their attacks against the most vulnerable of unborn children under the deceptive guise of ‘women’s rights.’” 

“An authentic human right can never be a threat to the right to life. Furthermore, authentic human rights can never be separated from our duty to protect innocent human life,” Madise explained.

“Only moral absolutes, reflected in national and international law, can really protect society’s weakest and most vulnerable human beings.”

Madise said the targeting through testing and destruction through abortion of unborn babies with Down’s syndrome was “modern day eugenics” and that women are being instrumentalized in the process at a time when they are particularly vulnerable.

“Overwhelming evidence shows that the reality of women ‘benefiting’ from these so-called rights is a woman who is cornered and feels she has no choice,” Madise said.

“A 2012 Brazilian study found that while women did not always fully understand the disability their baby was diagnosed with and needed greater attention by health professionals than they received, yet, when the option of continuing the pregnancy was chosen, ‘a feeling of intense hope is observed, a feeling that change might be possible,’” she continued. 

Madise concluded her talk by saying “Poland has illuminated the way to the rebuilding of a truly civilized society” because of its treatment of the most vulnerable members of our society.

“A civilization can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Unborn children are the most vulnerable members of the human family,” she said.

“Polish pro-life laws are not merely laws that represent certain values and are dear to Polish people. They really show who you are.”

“Political and doctrinal contexts of the discussion on women’s rights”

12 November 2020

Maria Madise

We applaud the Polish people who have taken a stand in protection of unborn children and have now come under intense attack encouraged by the worldwide pro-abortion media. We totally support your continuing efforts to ensure this protection will be fully established and maintained in your laws.

By their historic ruling the Polish Constitutional Tribunal has set the truth about the sanctity of human life from conception before the world. This ruling seeks to restore protection to the lives of the most vulnerable children – those who are disabled and not yet born – as well as to give the support needed to their mothers to welcome and love them regardless of their special needs.

It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of this judgment in the global struggle to defend human life from conception. Our pro-abortion enemies supported by national as well as international institutions understand that fact only too well. In response, they seek to mobilize women to renew their attacks against the most vulnerable of unborn children under the deceptive guise of “women’s rights”. 

An authentic human right can never be a threat to the right to life. Furthermore, authentic human rights can never be separated from our duty to protect innocent human life. This is especially true for women, who are particularly called to nourish and care for life. 

Only moral absolutes, reflected in national and international law, can really protect society’s weakest and most vulnerable human beings. A law permitting the killing of an unborn child can never be a just law. The legalized killing of unborn children who may be suffering from a disease or a disability can never comply with authentic human rights. 

It is evident, therefore, that the so-called “women’s rights”, as they were championed on the streets of Poland, are not authentic rights. On the contrary, pro-abortion fake rights of women are an of attack on womanhood, and they are a betrayal mothers, when they need support the most. 

Pregnant women and their families need accurate, up-to-date information about the care practices and resources available for individuals with disabilities and their families. The experience of our post-abortion counselling service Abortion Recovery Care Helpline (ARCH), supported by international research, shows that many women who have aborted their children on the grounds of a disability are especially traumatized. 

These women, who often wanted the child very much, find it particularly difficult to come to terms with the fact that they chose to abort their sick baby when that baby needed them the most. By comparison, mothers who gave birth to their child, even knowing that the baby would die soon after birth, have emphasized the peace experienced at that time of natural bereavement.  

In England and Wales, well over 90% of babies suspected of having Down’s syndrome are aborted. As prenatal testing is becoming more widely available and strongly recommended, women may feel that it is irresponsible to opt out. International studies show that in stressful situations – and often without receiving adequate explanation regarding what a certain diagnosis may involve or when they are unable to comprehend this information fully – women find it easiest to comply with what they believe is the recommendation of healthcare professionals. A 2012 Norwegian study demonstrates that while screening technologies increase ‘options’ they also effectively decrease ‘choice’, that is, freely made decisions.[1]

The new prenatal tests, such as Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) in the UK, target children with Down’s syndrome. This is of course deeply disturbing. It signals a determination by our government officials to eliminate people with Down’s syndrome and others with disabilities. This is clearly a form of prenatal ‘quality-control’. 

This is modern day eugenics. It is deciding that some human beings are not good enough, are not useful enough by our standards. This is sending an awful message to disabled people in our society: What good are you? You just suffer and die. In fact, it would be better, if you had not been born. Abandoning the legal protection for the disabled children has created a social expectation to get rid of them. 

This is a huge attack on humanity, on unconditional love, on security for anyone, because once we accept that pain and suffering can be eliminated by eliminating people, where could one draw and end?

And this large-scale attack on humanity, on authentic human rights, has been launched by instrumentalizing women at the time when they are particularly vulnerable. 

In 52 years, abortion in Britain has spread from what was intended as strictly restricted to an epidemic. Now under the lockdown rules, abortion is just a phone call away, available in your own home. A woman, perhaps isolated and confused, perhaps pressured by others, can kill her own child with pills she has obtained by mail, fully in line with fake women’s rights. 

Those who advocate for such so-called rights paint a picture of a calm, cool and collected woman who, weighing her options with expert advice, decides freely. Overwhelming evidence shows that the reality of women “benefiting” from these so-called rights is a woman who is cornered and feels she has no choice. 

A 2012 Brazilian study found that while women did not always fully understand the disability their baby was diagnosed with and needed greater attention by health professionals than they received, yet, when the option of continuing the pregnancy was chosen, “a feeling of intense hope is observed, a feeling that change might be possible”.[2]As long as there is life, there is hope. 

We are, therefore, deeply grateful to the Polish Court and people behind this ruling who have just given that hope to mothers and families, by determining that the abortion of children diagnosed with a disability is incompatible with the Polish Constitution and numerous principles of international law.

According to the preamble of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) children with disabilities should fully enjoy all human rights on an equal basis with other children. It would be highly hypocritical, therefore, to respect such equality for children only after birth and not before. We should also recall that the reservation presented by the Polish delegation during the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stated clearly that one of its articles (Article 25a) “cannot be interpreted as a way of confirming the right of an individual to abortion or ordering the state to provide access to it”.

The Polish Constitutional Tribunal had already recognized the interrelated nature of the protection of human dignity and legal guarantees of the protection of human life in its judgment of 27 January 2004, when it stated that: “There can be no protection of human dignity if there are no sufficient grounds to protect life”.

Now the Tribunal has truly ruled in favor of human dignity – fully in line with the preamble to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, according to which discrimination against anyone on the basis of disability “is a violation of the inherent dignity and value of the human person”.

The moral blindness of our society has grown to the extent that the killing of fifty million unborn children each year is no longer considered a crime that cries out to heaven. Consequently, millions of women walk the earth wounded to the core – in their femininity, motherhood, in their ability to love, to say nothing of those who all share in these wounds, even if they also share responsibility for inflicting them. 

Extensive permissiveness is sadly the trend in virtually every country where abortion was legalized in so-called hard cases – that is, in cases when the baby has been conceived in rape or in cases when the baby has been diagnosed with disability. And in none of these countries did it stop at these so-called hard cases. Once a country has abortion in certain cases, it has abortion and it is extremely difficult to turn around. Poland is set to go against all odds in doing just that – in reversing the injustice and harm done to its people and its culture.

The pressure on pro-life Poland to give in is immense, from powerful voices from within as well as without. Those powers don’t love life, they don’t love women, they don’t love Poland. Polish pro-life laws are not merely laws that represent certain values and are dear to Polish people. They really show who you are. 

A civilization can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Unborn children are the most vulnerable members of the human family. While a mother’s womb should be the safest place, it is statistically one of the most dangerous places to live! Unborn children with disabilities, in turn, are the most vulnerable among the unborn. It is, therefore, the protection of these children and their families that is the core criterion in evaluating the level of our civilization. Poland has illuminated the way to the rebuilding of a truly civilized society, where innocent life is protected from conception and mothers supported in their noble mission to nourish life.