(LifeSiteNews) — The abortion lobby suffered a defeat in a recent trial at the European Court of Humans Rights (ECHR).
The case by a Polish woman, called “Ms. B.B.”, who sued Poland because she could not receive an abortion was declared inadmissible and thrown out by the ECHR.
The lawsuit was significant because the woman suing Poland was supported by big players in the abortion lobby, including the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights, the Federation for Woman and Family Planning, and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.
The case was “part of a strategic litigation programme run by Polish non-governmental organisations” to attack Poland’s restrictive abortion laws, according to the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), a pro-life NGO that submitted a statement as a third party to the case before the ECHR.
The woman who sued Poland “became pregnant at the end of 2013,” and her unborn child was diagnosed with serious abnormalities later in the pregnancy. She wanted to abort her child, but the doctor tasked with carrying out the abortion refused “on the grounds of conscientious objection.”
READ: Abortion advocates using woman’s miscarriage death to attack conscience rights in Italy
Labour MP Stella Creasy has threatened to table an amendment to the Government’s upcoming Bill of Rights to give women the “fundamental right to an abortion”.
Ms Creasy has already been instrumental in imposing abortion on Northern Ireland, promoting DIY abortion, and banning pro-life vigils around abortion clinics. Now she wants to remove any restrictions on abortion. She even wants decisions on abortion law to be taken out of the hands of elected politicians by making it a “right”.
Sign this petition calling on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to resist any attempt to make abortion a right.
There is no right to abortion in international law. None of the nine core treaties of the United Nations recognises abortion as a human right (including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women).
Instead, several human rights instruments recognise the right to life of children before birth. The Declaration of the Rights of the Child states: “… the child by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection before as well as after birth…”
There can be no right to end the life of an innocent unborn child.
The UK already has some of the most permissive abortion legislation in Europe. A right to abortion would make the situation here even worse. Creating an absolute “right” to abortion would logically mean removing any restrictions. The worst implications of this could include:
• The removal of any gestational limits, allowing abortion up to birth
• Abortion based on the gender of the baby
• The removal of medical safeguards, including the involvement of doctors
• Erosion of conscience rights for medical professionals
Sign this petition to tell Mr Sunak not to make abortion a right.
The overturn of a Court decision in the United States has no direct implications for abortion law in the UK, which is regulated by Acts of Parliament. The regulation of a controversial issue such as abortion should lie with democratically elected MPs, not the courts. Robert Buckland MP, the former Justice Secretary, has warned that enshrining abortion as a right “risks bringing our courts into the political arena as in the United States”.
Tell Mr Sunak to stand up for parliamentary democracy and a true understanding of human rights, and resist any attempt to make abortion a right.
“The applicant tried to obtain an abortion in another medical centre but was informed that the pregnancy was in its twenty-fourth week and that therefore abortion was no longer legal in her case,” the case summary by the ECHR states. The child was eventually delivered via cesarean section, with multiple defects, and died a few days after the delivery.
The court declared the complaint inadmissible since “the applicant cannot be considered a ‘victim’” because she had already received a settlement payment from the hospital in a civil lawsuit.
“Despite the power and efforts of these lobbies, it is the legal argument of the ECLJ and the Polish government, summarized in §41 of the Court’s decision, that prevailed,” ECLJ wrote in its press release.
“The pro-abortion lobby has once again revealed its true face with this case, in particular its eugenic beliefs,” ECLJ stated. “The applicant’s first lawyer had to be replaced after he was convicted of organized crime involving extortion of 248 disabled people. The new lawyer challenged the ECLJ’s brief, accusing us of developing ‘extremist religious arguments’.”
“This lobby pushed the applicant to call her child a ‘monster’ in the media, and attacked her doctor,” ECLJ’s statement continued. “The doctor [who refused to perform the abortion] was publicly called by the Polish left ‘the incarnation of Satan’, a ‘possessed’ person, a ‘degenerate’ and a ‘person without conscience.’ He lost his position as hospital director because of this case. Finally, in 2020, the Constitutional Court of Poland declared eugenic abortion contrary to the human dignity guaranteed in the Constitution and consequently banned it.”
RELATED: Lynched, fined, and dismissed: an interview with Poland’s Dr. Bogdan Chazan
Furthermore, ECLJ stressed that, while this was an important victory, many more attacks by the abortion lobby are coming, especially against Poland’s pro-life laws:
This defeat of the abortion lobby is important, but it continues its ‘war’ against the protection of human life, especially against Poland, which is the object of relentless attacks at the ECHR. Other ‘battles’ and judgments are to come.
You can support ECLJ by signing and sharing their petition titled “For the protection of Every Human Life.”