Polish abortion verdict violated rights of pregnant woman, human rights court rules

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled that a Polish constitutional court judgment that forced a woman to travel abroad to get an abortion violated her right to respect for private and family life.

The case was brought by a woman whose baby was diagnosed with a fetal anomaly while she was pregnant.

“The applicant had become pregnant, and the fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 21. A scheduled hospital abortion had been cancelled when the legislative amendments resulting from the constitutional court ruling had come into force," the ECHR said in a statement.

Unable to have an abortion in Poland, the woman ultimately had to travel to a private clinic outside of Poland for the procedure, the court added.

The human rights court said it found that the legislative amendments in question, which had forced the woman to travel abroad for an abortion at considerable expense and away from her family support network, had a significant psychological impact on her.

“Such interference with her rights, and in particular with a medical procedure for which she had qualified and which had already been put in motion, had created a situation which had deprived her of proper safeguards against arbitrariness," the ruling said. "Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights was violated," it added.

In October 2020, the Polish court tightened one of the EU’s toughest abortion regulations by ruling that abortions undertaken because of fetal defects are unconstitutional, meaning that Polish women may have abortions only in cases of rape or incest, or if the life of the woman is endangered.

Polish women argued that the decision violated their human rights because it would force them to carry any future pregnancy to term, even in cases where the fetus developed abnormalities. The ECHR dismissed a separate challenge to the tighter Polish rules this past summer, citing the weakness of the evidence.

The coalition of new Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has promised to reverse the 2020 court decision that ended most abortion rights in the country.