Three years ago, Poland ended eugenic abortions, protecting preborn children with disabilities from being intentionally killed. Prior to that law, 98% of abortions in Poland were committed due to the prenatal diagnosis of a disability. And ever since then, abortion activists have been trying to make abortion legal again. The country’s Catholic bishops are now pushing back.
Last November, a new coalition government was formed, and an agreement was signed to amend certain parts of Polish law, including allowing for legalized abortion — the intentional, targeted killing of a preborn child — through the first trimester. By April, legislators had begun to move forward with their plans.
In a letter approved during the 398th Plenary Assembly of the Polish Bishops’ Conference in Warsaw, the Polish bishops clearly stated that no one has the right to nullify another person’s right to life.
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“The life of a new and unique human person begins at conception, that is, the fusion of the cells of the mother and the father. From that moment on, every human being should have the full right to the protection of life,” the letter said.
The bishops also quoted St. John Paul II from his encyclical Evangelium Vitae: “There can be no true democracy without a recognition of every person’s dignity and without respect for his or her rights.”
They further noted that there has been “a growing pressure to change the legal protection of human life towards legalizing the killing of the child in the womb… This is very worrying and extremely dangerous for public safety. Every person of good will should oppose it.”
The letter will be read in full to Polish parishes on June 16th and includes a reminder that Catholics are obligated to protect all human beings, especially the weakest and most defenseless among us. “[Life] as the supreme value of every human being and a fundamental element of the common good, is a fundamental good, overriding the individual freedom of others,” the letter said. “No one, therefore, in the name of personal freedom, has the right to decide on the life of another human being.”
