Polish party chief: Women should give birth even to deformed babies
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
12.10.2016 16:53
The head of Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party has voiced opposition to a total ban on abortion, but said he is in favour of women giving birth even to deformed children, so such babies can be baptised.
Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczyński. Photo: Flickr.com/Piotr Drabik
PiS chief Jarosław Kaczyński was speaking in an interview with the PAP news agency published on Wednesday.
His comments came a week after the Polish parliament decided to reject a controversial citizens’ bill aiming to totally ban abortions that has triggered street protests.
Kaczyński said the bill was “contrary to” his view “on what the state can do; on where is the line which the state cannot cross when it comes to intervening in people's lives”.
New abortion law?
He did not rule out that another bill on abortion may be submitted, suggesting that his party could come up with such a move.
“We will strive to ensure that even in pregnancies which are very difficult, when a child is sure to die, strongly deformed, [women] end up giving birth so that the child can be baptised, buried, have a name,” Kaczyński said.
He said that at present there are “around a thousand legal abortions a year, of which a large part is due to Down syndrome.
'Public need to be convinced'
“We hope that soon this will not be the case. This is our goal. This must be prepared in the right way, however. The public also need to be convinced, particularly women, and we will do it.”
Poland already has one of the strictest laws on abortion in Europe, adopted in 1993 and allowing terminations only in the case of rape or incest, when the pregnancy endangers the mother, or the foetus is severely deformed.
(rg/pk)