Polish woman refused abortion goes to Europe court
|
|
A Polish woman who was refused an abortion despite doctors’ warnings that giving birth could damage her eyesight accused Poland on Tuesday of failing to protect her rights under its strict abortion law.
Alicja Tysiac, whose vision worsened after the birth and is now registered as disabled, asked Europe’s human rights court to consider her complaint that she was unable to obtain an abortion on therapeutic or health grounds.
She says two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, protecting the right to respect for human life and forbidding inhuman or degrading treatment, were violated.
“Poland did not protect Alicja Tysiac’s health when she was at her most vulnerable,” her lawyer, Anna Wilkowska-Landowska, said as the court considered the appeal in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.
Poland, which is predominantly Roman Catholic, has one of the toughest abortion laws in Europe.
Tysiac, who is now 35, consulted doctors when she discovered in February 2000 that she was pregnant for the third time. Three ophthalmologists told her she faced serious risk to her eyesight if she carried the pregnancy to term.
However, the three refused to grant her an abortion certificate. A gynaecologist also found there were no medical grounds for terminating the pregnancy.
Following the delivery by Caesarean section in November 2000, Tysiac’s eyesight deteriorated considerably due to what was diagnosed as retinal haemorrhage.
Tysiac, who is bringing up her three children alone, cannot see objects more than 1.50 metres (12 ft) away and fears she will eventually become blind. She receives a monthly pension equivalent to 140 euros ($167.8) as she is disabled.
Tysiac lodged a criminal complaint against the gynaecologist but the case was abandoned by a district prosecutor in Poland on the grounds that there was no causal link between the doctor’s decision and the deterioration in her eyesight.
The European Court of Human Rights cannot make Poland change its abortion law but could rule that Tysiac’s rights were violated.
Abortion is allowed in Poland only when a woman is raped, the pregnancy threatens her life of if there is a probability the baby will have birth defects.
Print Version
Tell-a-Friend comments powered by Disqus
