World News | Polish Police: 15 Detained After Abortion Ban Protest
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Poland's police said Friday they detained 15 people during protests in Warsaw against a court ruling that toughened the nation's strict abortion law and banned abortion of fetuses with congenital defects.
Warsaw, Oct 23 (AP) Poland's police said Friday they detained 15 people during protests in Warsaw against a court ruling that toughened the nation's strict abortion law and banned abortion of fetuses with congenital defects.
Hundreds of people protested Thursday night in front of the ruling right-wing party offices and the home of its leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, in defiance of a pandemic-related ban on public gatherings. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
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Warsaw police spokesman Sylwester Marczak said Friday that 14 people remain in detention and 35 have been fined for having broken the ban.
They were protesting the ruling by the government-controlled Constitutional Court Thursday that declared abortion of defective fetuses unconstitutional, thus shutting a major loophole in the 1993 abortion law that was a hard-won compromise.
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Health Ministry figures for 2019 show that most of the 1,110 legal abortions performed last year were due to fetal genetic defects like Down syndrome, or to physical defects.
Activists are planning more protests in a number of cities Friday and Saturday. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)