Posted on 03/20/2007 12:43:20 PM PDT by lizol
Poland ordered to compensate woman denied abortion
Tue 20 Mar 2007 11:29 AM ET
By Gilbert Reilhac
STRASBOURG, March 20 (Reuters) - Poland was ordered on Tuesday to pay a woman 39,000 euros ($52,000) after she was prevented from having an abortion despite doctors' warnings that she could lose her sight if she gave birth.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Alicja Tysiac, 36, whose eyesight worsened after the baby girl was born and who is now registered as disabled, had been denied her human rights under Poland's strict anti-abortion laws.
The court ordered Poland to pay her 25,000 euros in compensation and 14,000 euros in costs.
"It's one of the most important judgments the court has come down with regarding women's reproductive rights in the past decade at least," said Christina Zampas, senior legal adviser for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based advocacy group.
"There are thousands of women in Poland who are denied access to abortion who are legally entitled to it," she said.
Tysiac, who is bringing up three children alone, suffers from an eye disease and cannot see objects more than 1.50 metres (five feet) away. She receives a monthly disability pension equivalent to 140 euros.
Tysiac became pregnant in 2000. Three doctors told her she could go blind if she gave birth to her third child, but refused to write her a certificate that would authorise an abortion.
Poland, strongly Roman Catholic, has some of the toughest abortion laws in Europe.
It allows a pregnancy to be interrupted only when it threatens the life or health of the mother, when the baby is likely to be permanently handicapped or when it originates from a crime such as rape or incest.
A general practitioner later granted Tysiac an abortion certificate but it was ruled invalid because it was not delivered by a specialist.
The court criticised the fact that Polish law does not contain "any special procedure for handling and resolving cases where there is disagreement over the suitability of a therapeutic abortion, either between a mother and doctors or between doctors themselves".
Let's hope this becomes a showdown.
"An abortion certificate"?!
Hear that giant sucking sound? It's the EU going to hell in a handbasket...
this article is pretty short on facts..
i have to say, if having kids is making her go blind, she might be doing it wrong.
Well, Gawwww-lleee! I wonder how that happened!
And when did dismembering a baby become a "human right"?
You think Poland would win?
We're way ahead of them on this issue I think.
Umm.... this idiot needs to study Poland's laws. According to the law, woman do NOT Have a right to an abortion.
And on a personal note - exactly why did the woman choose to engage in the activity that results in pregnancy, if she did not want to be pregnant, or if being pregnant would be a risk she was not willing to face?
You see - abortion, in 99.999% of the cases, is a case of fleeing responsibility. Responsibility for the initial act that resulted in pregnancy, the actual pregnancy, and the associated costs of parenting. There is ONE 100% effective method of birth control - abstinence. There are ALWAYS risks in sex - just as there are risks in pregnancy. If the exclusion for "health" of the mother is allowed, then every single pregnancy could then be classified as abortable because of the health of the mother.
If you cannot bear the thought of parenting, then keep it in your pants - period.
All your national sovereignty are belong to us.
I feel sorry for the child to have such a mother. Blindness? She should have risked her life to have that child. She has no heart.
Sad.
Couldn't she have just done it till she needed glasses?
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