Editor
These restrictive legal guidelines have compelled many ladies to hold undesirable pregnancies to time period, journey overseas to have authorized abortions or search personal unsafe procedures, primarily based on info from the UN human rights workplace (OHCHR).
The report from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination in opposition to Women (CEDAW) printed on Monday, discovered that almost all abortions in Poland are being carried out illegally and in unsafe situations as it’s unlawful to help girls in getting abortions, with minimal authorized exceptions, and providers are sometimes inaccessible.
CEDAW members are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Committee Vice-Chair Genoveva Tisheva mentioned: “The scenario in Poland constitutes gender-based violence in opposition to girls and should rise to the extent of torture or merciless, inhuman, or degrading therapy.”
Restricted rights
Two years in the past, Ms. Tisheva visited Poland to conduct a confidential investigation about girls’s rights being violated following allegations from civil society organizations.
The CEDAW committee discovered that Poland’s “already restrictive authorized framework” had some “critical implementation flaws” together with docs hesitating to carry out abortions because of concern of felony legal responsibility or on ethical or non secular grounds, making it difficult for girls to entry secure abortion providers.
The committee emphasised important challenges girls face in accessing abortion providers, particularly when pregnancies outcome from felony exercise, because of a “advanced and victim-unfriendly bureaucratic course of.” These challenges are additional exacerbated by sturdy anti-abortion lobbying teams, threats, and the stigmatisation of those that present help.
“Together, these components create a fancy, hostile and chilling atmosphere wherein entry to secure abortion is stigmatised and virtually inconceivable,” Ms. Tisheva mentioned.
Conclusion and suggestions
The CEDAW committee concluded that Poland’s restrictive abortion legal guidelines endanger the well being and lives of girls and trigger psychological and bodily struggling, which is a gender-based violation in opposition to girls.
These restrictive legal guidelines will also be thought-about “torture or merciless, inhuman, and degrading therapy.”
Vice-Chair Tisheva mentioned, “Women’s psychological anguish was exacerbated when compelled to hold a non-viable foetus to time period, a scenario that has worsened since a 2020 Constitutional Court ruling banned abortion even in instances of deadly foetal abnormalities.”
This ruling reportedly made abortion unlawful besides in instances the place a pregnant girl’s life could also be in peril or instances of sexual assault.
Some of CEDAW’s suggestions to Poland embody recognising abortion as a elementary human proper and the adoption of a human rights primarily based method to sexual and reproductive well being general – notably by way of authorized reforms “in direction of complete decriminalisation and legalisation of abortion”, in accordance the press launch issued by UN human rights workplace OHCHR.
