Fetal Repositioning
Recent Pro-life Legal Victories in Europe
For pro-lifers in Europe, the last months of 2020 and the first of 2021 brought encouraging developments in the courts and other governmental bodies. The most significant gains have come from Eastern Europe, although a meeting in Switzerland was the origin of an important international declaration that has now been issued as an official UN document and signed by over thirty nations. It states plainly that abortion is not a human right. An ongoing legal fight in the UK and a decision in the French Senate also give grounds for encouragement. Let's look at these decisions and declarations in some detail.
Poland & Hungary
On October 22, 2020, the Polish Constitutional Court declared a provision of a 1993 law on abortion unconstitutional on multiple grounds. The provision had made abortion legal in Poland in cases where "prenatal examinations or other medical data indicate a high probability of serious and irreversible disability of the fetus or an incurable life-threatening disease." The Constitutional Court found that the "mere probability" of disability or incurable illness in a fetus was insufficient grounds to deem the mother's interest in avoiding the difficulties of raising a disabled or sick child greater than the child's interest in living. The court also declared that the interest in favor of aborting such a child was "eugenic in nature" and that abortion based on disability constituted both a violation of the right to life and an assault on the dignity of the human person.
Unsurprisingly, the Polish court's decision was soon denounced by the European Parliament. In a statement rich in sloganeering but poor in sound thinking, the Parliament argued—contrary to the explicit assertion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights that "everyone has the right to life" (Article 2.1)—that there was a right to abortion that the Polish government was violating. As of this writing (mid-February), the EU Parliament is threatening to withhold funds from Poland in punishment. Both the EU and the BBC mendaciously alleged that Poland's ban on eugenic abortion constitutes a de facto ban on all abortions, an allegation refuted by Archbishop Gadecki of Poznan. But the ban will certainly have the effect of saving the lives of many babies with Down syndrome, who accounted for more than a third of the eugenic abortions performed in Poland in 2019.
The ruling of Poland's Constitutional Court finds echoes in legal developments in the UK and Hungary. In the UK, a case brought before the High Court of London challenges the nation's current abortion law, which allows for the abortion of disabled fetuses beyond the 24-week limit applied to all other cases. This case was still undecided as of February 2021, but the moral principle behind it, as with the ruling in Poland, lies in the affirmation of the inalienable dignity of the lives of the disabled. Legally, the action turns on the weighing of conflicting interests and makes an argument so obvious it should not need making: the interest of any person in continuing to live outweighs every potential interest of those inconvenienced or discommoded by the exigencies attending that person's life.
Precisely this weighing of conflicting personal interests lies at the heart of a "wrongful birth" suit brought in Hungary. The parents of a girl born with a congenital disorder argued that personnel at the attending hospital should have detected their child's disorder before the 20th week of pregnancy, when they would have had the chance to abort her. At issue was a conflict between Hungary's Fundamental Law, which acknowledges the right to life of every human being and explicitly states that the life of a fetus shall be protected from the moment of conception, and a 1992 law that permits eugenic abortion up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In October 2020, the Budapest-Capital Regional Court found that the 1992 law conflicted with, and was superseded by, the Fundamental Law, which protects the life of an unborn child of any gestational age. The ruling is likely to be upheld by the Hungarian Constitutional Court, and if it is, the door would be open to a ban on eugenic abortion in Hungary like the one passed in Poland.
The Principles of the EU Convention
The decisions in Poland and Hungary are consonant with—indeed, are arguably required by—international law. To quote from a press release issued by the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ):
On the one hand, prohibiting abortion is in line with international law. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) allows states to interpret the right to life in this way, and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for "appropriate legal protection both before and after birth" (Preamble). On the other hand, prohibiting eugenic abortion is not only consistent with, but also required by international law, which in particular enshrines the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recalled this in 2018 and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [did so] in 2019 and 2020.
John D. Martin was born and raised in Indiana, but now lives in Germany with his family. He earned his doctorate from the University of Illinois and has written both academic articles and articles for the popular press, including Touchstone, First Things, Salvo, and The Federalist. His first novel, Charis Colony: The Landing, appeared in November 2020.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on abortion from the online archives
24.1—January/February 2011
How Planned Parenthood's Founder Played the Christians, and Won by Allan C. Carlson
26.1—Jan/Feb 2013
on Abortion as a Matter of National Welfare by W. Ross Blackburn
19.1—January/February 2006
on Death & Seven of the Last Words of Socrates by Graeme Hunter
more from the online archives
30.5—Sept/Oct 2017
The Christian Cure for What Ails Modern Politics by David Bradshaw
32.4—July/August 2019
Will Islamicization Become Its New Future by Peter Riddell
31.1—January/February 2018
The Wisdom of the Victorian Quest for Innocence by David Sandifer
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
