E.U. court to hear polish abortion appeal.A POLE WHO SUFFERED retinal hemorrhage Retinal Hemorrhage Definition Retinal hemorrhage is the abnormal bleeding of the blood vessels in the retina, the membrane in the back of the eye. after bringing a pregnancy to term against her will is challenging Poland's strict abortion law Abortion law is legislation which pertains to the provision of abortion. Abortion has at times emerged as a controversial subject in various societies because of the moral and ethical issues that surround it, though other considerations, such as a state's pro- or antinatalist in the European Court of Human Rights European Court of Human Rights: see Council of Europe. . Warsaw resident Alicja Tysiac, a 35-year-old single mother, was unable to obtain an abortion in 2000--having sought one after doctors said childbirth would exacerbate her existing vision problems--and can now see no farther than five feet after delivering her second child. Before joining the European Union European Union (EU), name given since the ratification (Nov., 1993) of the Treaty of European Union, or Maastricht Treaty, to the European Community in 2004, overwhelmingly Catholic Poland entered into a pact with the Vatican not to soften its abortion laws. The country allows abortion only in severely limited circumstances; the Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning family planning Use of measures designed to regulate the number and spacing of children within a family, largely to curb population growth and ensure each family’s access to limited resources. estimates as few as 150 legal abortions are performed each year in Poland. The European court heard Tysiac's case in February 2006 and as of July had set no judgment date. (For more on this story, see Barbara Hewson's story on p37.) The Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning is collecting signatures for an open letter to the Polish prime minister at www.federa.org.pl/signatures. |
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