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Seamus_L
Guest
Terrible news. I agree with the Archbishop of Lodz Marek Jedraszewski when he called those protesting the proposed law, a manifestation of the civilization of death.
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JurisPrudens
Guest
To be frank, something like this was expected. As soon as the initiative started, the ruling party’s leadership said they would allow a “conscience vote”.
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Seamus_L
Guest
Poland is still one of the most conservative countries in Europe, but it’s not as conservative as it was a decade or two ago.
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JurisPrudens
Guest
On the other hand, I saw the polls purportedly showing that a bigger proportion of population of Poland considers abortion immoral nowadays than two decades ago.
Which means, positive changes are possible.
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Seamus_L
Guest
Juris, I’d base my suspicions on the size of the recent protests, including the large numbers of mostly women, walking out of mass, as well as the fact that since 2010, Poland has had something like 7 homosexual candidates elected to public office.
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Rosebud77
Guest
Confusing. I posted this in the other thread Just read this
breakingnews.ie/world/pol…on-758082.html
Does that mean they already have a law as strict as here? So the new law was what? Abortions are still banned unless the life of the mother is in danger?
breakingnews.ie/world/pol…on-758082.html
Does that mean they already have a law as strict as here? So the new law was what? Abortions are still banned unless the life of the mother is in danger?
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JurisPrudens
Guest
- The legal regime predetermines long-term changes in popular perceptions. In Poland abortion has been, to a large extent, illegal since 1993. Thus, the modern Polish society is generally more pro-life than it used to be in 1993. On the other hand, some things, like homosexuality, have only been decriminalized after the fall of communism - thus, the modern society there has grown more tolerant to it.
- Size of the protests and the women walking out of one church may be very misleading. Many, if not most, of the participants of those protests actually support the current abortion regime and consider abortion immoral. They were protesting largely because they saw the proposed bill as unwise and able to cause negative consequences. Many of them were misinformed on the bill’s contents. Many, being personally against abortion, are misguided by the idea of “right of choice” or “mercy”.
- Election of homosexual MPs by itself is not a test of the nation’s morals. They have a proportional system of parliamentary elections, which means those candidates were probably part of the party lists and got into parliament together with their party. Moreover, don’t you think a homosexual person can sometimes be a good politician?
- Finally, it seems You are American; You tend to transfer the realities of the U.S. religious mindset to Europe. In the U.S., a truly devout religious person is, by 99% of probability, a consistently conservative and actively pro-life person. It is not so in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe. Here one can be a good and devout Catholic, being personally against abortions and homosexuality, but still vote for liberal or left-wing parties, because he(she) thinks their policies are better for the country. Yes, such people are most probably misguided; nevertheless, their support for some liberal causes does not necessarily entail their being “bad Catholics” because of that.
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JurisPrudens
Guest
Your link is broken.
Answering Your question. The current law in Poland (enacted in 1993) forbids abortions, unless in cases of: a) rape, b) fetus deformities, c) danger to mother’s life or health.
Now, this is Eastern Europe, where corruption and disobedience to law are more wide-spread than in the West. Thus, these three exceptions were often abused in practice. The doctors would often abort the child on the pretext of danger that the mother’s eyesight might worsen. Sometimes they would perform an abortion under pretext of pre-natal tests. Sometimes a “rape”, after official investigation, turned out to be not rape at all - but the baby would have already been aborted by that time. Numerous people with Down syndrome are aborted. Eventually, as the effect of these vague exceptions, the number of official abortions in Poland has been increasing in recent years; last years it was about 950 babies.
Thus, the new bill was intended to restrain this. The bill would only allow an abortion in case the mother’s life was in present and imminent danger, so that it was impossible to save both the mother and the child. The bill also proposed to introduce criminal punishment not only for doctors but also for the women themselves.
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XndrK
Guest
As far as Point IV goes, I would like to point out that a large segment of the Catholic population of the United States vote Democrat because they are Latino and by extension opposed to the GOP’s immigration policies especially. (Not all of them, of course; I’m dealing in trends, not absolutes. Statistics is fun.)
- The legal regime predetermines long-term changes in popular perceptions. In Poland abortion has been, to a large extent, illegal since 1993. Thus, the modern Polish society is generally more pro-life than it used to be in 1993. On the other hand, some things, like homosexuality, have only been decriminalized after the fall of communism - thus, the modern society there has grown more tolerant to it.
- Size of the protests and the women walking out of one church may be very misleading. Many, if not most, of the participants of those protests actually support the current abortion regime and consider abortion immoral. They were protesting largely because they saw the proposed bill as unwise and able to cause negative consequences. Many of them were misinformed on the bill’s contents. Many, being personally against abortion, are misguided by the idea of “right of choice” or “mercy”.
- Election of homosexual MPs by itself is not a test of the nation’s morals. They have a proportional system of parliamentary elections, which means those candidates were probably part of the party lists and got into parliament together with their party. Moreover, don’t you think a homosexual person can sometimes be a good politician?
- Finally, it seems You are American; You tend to transfer the realities of the U.S. religious mindset to Europe. In the U.S., a truly devout religious person is, by 99% of probability, a consistently conservative and actively pro-life person. It is not so in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe. Here one can be a good and devout Catholic, being personally against abortions and homosexuality, but still vote for liberal or left-wing parties, because he(she) thinks their policies are better for the country. Yes, such people are most probably misguided; nevertheless, their support for some liberal causes does not necessarily entail their being “bad Catholics” because of that.
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JurisPrudens
Guest
Yeah, you’re right; in Europe it is even more widespread. It is funny to see American Catholic media to pay so much attention to conservative politics, while seeing British Catholic media to talk so much about benefits to families and to whether the modern Labour party has any chances of embracing the distributist social theory.
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Seamus_L
Guest
Can a homosexual person sometimes be a good politician? I can’t think of any off hand who do not support a pro-homosexual legal agenda.
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initramfs
Guest
BTW, the bill was definitely rejected this morning.
During today’s debate in the parliament their representative has first denied that the bill contains a clause imprisoning women for abortion and literally five minutes later asked for a vote to remove said clause. Yes, you read that right. She asked for a vote to remove the clause that (according to her) was not there five minutes earlier.
If anyone was misinforming, it was the bill proponents.
During today’s debate in the parliament their representative has first denied that the bill contains a clause imprisoning women for abortion and literally five minutes later asked for a vote to remove said clause. Yes, you read that right. She asked for a vote to remove the clause that (according to her) was not there five minutes earlier.
Citation needed.
If you are referring to Tysiac v. Poland, then you realize that Tysiac sued because she was denied abortion on these grounds?
Citation needed. Amniocentesis has inherent 1-2% risk of miscarriage.
“Agata?” She was underage, thus, statutory rape, even if consensual.
That’s not abuse, that’s the letter of the law. Down syndrome is a genetic anomaly.
Brilliant idea! A woman facing 5 years for an illegal abortion will have zero reason to testify against the abortionist. Their business would just become a lot safer!
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JurisPrudens
Guest
I don’t need any citations. I tell what people from Poland that I know told me. If you need any citations, provide them on our own.
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