The anti abortion law Poland gets more updated to help families stay away from terminating a pregnancy. According to a new policy, families with disabled newborns will get bonus pay. While Polish lawmakers plan to reduce the number of abortions with the new policy, women rights activists claim the government is not ready to understand the women's perspective.
Families will get $1,000 (4,000 zlotys) right after the birth of a child with disabilities. The one-time pay is applicable for even the children who are born with life-threatening diseases. It takes around 1,300 zlotys to take care of a disabled child for a month.
According to "Save Women" activist Barbara Nowacka, the parliament is not interested in talking about women's rights. She said her organization would continue to fight for it. The current anti abortion law Poland was passed in 1993.
"Parliament doesn't want to talk about women's rights, dignity, a decent life, sex education or birth control, but that doesn't mean that we'll give up," The Guardian quoted her as saying.
The Catholic Church backs the conservative government which plans to ban abortions of sick or deformed fetuses. The government even wants mothers to deliver children who have no chance of survival. The idea is to baptize those children before their proper burial.
According to women rights activists, the government estimate of fewer than 2,000 abortions every year is far from the truth. They claim around 150,000 abortions take place every year. However, those are performed either abroad or illegally.
Polish lawmakers also want to restrict IVF, the in-vitro fertilization. In the procedure, the embryo is fertilized outside a woman's body. After the fertilization, the embryo is implanted in the woman's womb.
The anti abortion law Poland has made it illegal to go for abortion unless the health of the mother is at stake. The exceptions where the government allows a woman to abort her pregnancy also includes those which result from incest and rape. Doctors face prison terms if they perform illegal abortions. For this reason, doctors refuse to perform abortions even when it is legal in the country, Fox News reports.
