As Poland calls for aid to rescue refugees fleeing Ukraine invaded and battered by the Russian military, the world is calling on Poland to liberalize abortion.
It seems to be repeating the horror movie of last year, when, in the midst of the tragedy and deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, European and international institutions, most prominently the World Health Organization (WHO), stepped on the accelerator on abortion, especially by facilitating the marketing of abortion pills to most countries in the world.
Last week, Poland’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Joanna Skoczek, addressed the Security Council to present the aid package Warsaw is providing to more than three million Ukrainian refugees, stating that “about 200,000 refugee children from Ukraine attend Polish schools,” of which “20 percent are in preparatory classes and 80 percent are in regular classes together with Polish children.” In addition, “an online platform has been created that offers free educational tools.” This is as part of global aid aimed at supporting all 3.6 million refugees who have arrived from Ukraine out of the total (the source is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR) 6 million who have fled the war since February.
Now, on March 9, representatives of the governments of Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia, as well as the Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, Andrii Deshchytsia, met in Warsaw. At the table, sponsored by Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński, Poland asked Europe for “a fund of several billion euros” for none other than refugee aid, reiterating the “Polish request to hold an EU summit on funding as soon as possible.” But the European Union keeps denying that request. Why? Because Poland has laws in favor of the right to nascent human life and protection of the natural family.
That is, in the midst of the biggest refugee crisis since World War II (1929-1945), Brussels, which would like to present itself as the common and welcoming home of the peoples of Europe, is thinking of imposing new sanctions against Poland, which is providing aid to those who are suffering, and at the same time against Hungary as well, again because of its pro-life and pro-family laws by Budapest. This was clearly reiterated by the European Commission.
Just in March, as sanctions against Russia were being staged, the European Parliament (EP) asked the European Commission to quickly decide on sanctions against Warsaw for violating “liberal democratic values.” After all, it is since 2020 that the EP has been fighting the Polish Constitutional Court’s decision to ban eugenic abortion. And the fact that abortion is illegal in Poland except in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk, is intolerable to Brussels. And the EP’s approval just under a year ago of the infamous Matić Report, by which abortion is declared a “human right” and laws preventing it “a form of gender-based violence,” is the ultimate frame of reference.
Three facts underscore the seriousness of the offensive. First, in September, the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, the parliamentary referral network for Planned Parenthood in Europe, released its first report on so-called “reproductive rights” in Europe, which was publicized in a big way in February. In the ranking devoted to abortion in that document, Poland and Malta, along with Russia and a few others, come out as the “worst,” that is, the countries that best defend nascent human life.
Second, in March, Amnesty International, along with several other pro-abortion acronyms, issued an urgent appeal to all governments bordering Ukraine to guarantee “reproductive rights, including free, unrestricted and safe abortion,” exactly as the WHO has called for, to all refugee women fleeing bombs and devastation.
Third, female refugees arriving in Poland to escape war “must have access to reproductive rights that meet international standards, including abortion,” Gillian Triggs told UNHCR leadership on May 13. Thus, in addition to Ukraine, Poland is also proudly and strenuously resisting. A different war, equally deadly and lethal.