Poland Like China and North Korea. Abortion Guidelines Degrade the Level of Life Protection

A press conference of the Ordo Iuris Institute and the Center for Life and Family was held today in Warsaw, devoted to the state of life protection in Poland against the background of other countries of the world, as well as to the update of the “Pro-Life Encyclopedia” published by Ordo Iuris three years ago. The event was attended by attorney Jerzy Kwaśniewski – President of Ordo Iuris, legal counsel Katarzyna Gęsiak – Director of the Ordo Iuris Center for Medical Law and Bioethics, Marcin Olszówka, Ph.D. – member of the Ordo Iuris Academic Council, and Marcin Perłowski – Director of the Center for Life and Family.

Poland’s Drastic Fall in the Ranking

Poland ranks 84th in the global ranking of life protection if one assesses solely the state of the law in force – according to the latest update of the classification prepared by the Ordo Iuris Institute and published within the “Pro-Life Encyclopedia”. This is one place higher than in the 2023 edition, which Marcin Olszówka explained not by an improvement of standards in Poland, but by changes in the legislation of other states. However, when one takes into account the actual conduct – that is, the manner in which the public authorities apply or break the law in force – Poland falls as far as 192nd place, finding itself among states such as Canada, China, communist Vietnam, and North Korea. The direct cause of this unprecedented drop of 107 positions in the span of merely three years is the abortion policy of Donald Tusk’s government, carried out beyond the framework of the law in force.

Opening the conference, attorney Jerzy Kwaśniewski underscored the exceptional character of this situation. Poland found itself in the company of the worst-rated states not because any statutes or the Constitution had been changed, but because of the unlawful actions of the government, which – as the President of Ordo Iuris pointed out – is forcing hospitals to perform abortions, while those facilities that refuse are threatened with the termination of their contracts with the National Health Fund. Attorney Kwaśniewski also invoked the broader constitutional context: Donald Tusk’s government continues to refuse to publish more than 70 judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal. In the view of the President of Ordo Iuris, the attack on the rule of law is today directly an attack on the right to life – the fundamental human right that conditions the enjoyment of all other rights and freedoms.

Ranking Methodology and Global Trends

The life-protection ranking is based on an analysis of nearly 200 legal systems. The methodology is simple in its logic: the highest places are taken by states that ensure full protection of the unborn child and the mother without any abortion exceptions, while subsequent positions are assigned to countries that permit ever broader grounds for terminating a pregnancy – up to abortion on demand until birth. The ranking is published within the “Pro-Life Encyclopedia”. Marcin Olszówka corrected at the same time the common and erroneous belief that only four states completely prohibit abortion. In reality there are 46 such states, with each of them permitting the saving of the mother’s life, even if – in extremely rare cases – a side effect would be the death of the child. This classification makes it possible to depict reliably that, on a global scale, the protection of the lives of the unborn is not a marginal issue but a norm in force in nearly one quarter of the states of the world.

Olszówka noted that the update of the ranking is not solely a document describing regression. He pointed to positive changes in other countries. Costa Rica advanced from 66th to 50th place – its president issued an executive decree that de facto abolished the health ground for abortion, and the newly elected President Laura Fernández Delgado announced an increase in penalties for abortion. Vietnam, in turn, in 2025 abolished the policy compelling families to have only two children, thereby ending the practice of forced abortions. Citing these examples, Olszówka stressed that the global picture is not as one-sided as the messaging of the mainstream media would suggest – alongside states lowering the standards of life protection there exist also those that consistently raise them. At the head of the ranking there invariably stand 46 states ensuring full protection of life – without any abortion exceptions.

The Polish Government’s “Plan B” – An Unlawful Mechanism for Compelling Abortions

The mechanism of the Polish government’s “plan B” was discussed in detail by legal counsel Katarzyna Gęsiak, Director of the Ordo Iuris Center for Medical Law and Bioethics. She recalled that after the Sejm, in July 2024, rejected bills increasing the legal possibility of performing abortions, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced at a press conference on 30 August 2024: “At this moment, since we cannot open this gate wide due to the lack of a majority in the Sejm, we are opening the wickets (…). And that is why we have prepared guidelines”. The guidelines of the former Minister of Health, Izabela Leszczyna, however, do not have the force of law and do not constitute the official position of any learned society – and yet they have become an instrument for the systemic compelling of abortions in Polish hospitals.

The key tool of this mechanism turned out to be the amendment of the regulation of the Minister of Health on the general terms of contracts for the provision of health care services. The amended § 3(6) of that regulation imposes on hospitals performing a contract in the field of obstetrics and gynecology an outright obligation to perform pregnancy-termination services – regardless of the physician’s conscientious objection. In turn, § 30(1) provides for a financial penalty of up to 2% of the contract value for each established breach of this obligation. More on the situation of hospitals in the face of these provisions is contained in the guide of the Ordo Iuris Institute prepared with a view to the facilities affected by these unlawful regulations.

As attorney Gęsiak indicated, in Polish hospitals there is mass performance of eugenic abortions and abortions on demand – even in the ninth month of pregnancy – concealed behind enigmatic certificates from psychiatrists attesting to adjustment disorders. Unlawful activity is also conducted openly in Warsaw, at the “Abotak” center located on Wiejska Street, right next to the Sejm building. “Evil sanctioned by law forbids the doing of good and holds one to account for conduct in accordance with what is right” – attorney Gęsiak concluded, quoting the historiosopher Feliks Koneczny.

The fundamental demand of the pro-life movement is – as Jerzy Kwaśniewski stressed in closing the substantive part of the conference – to restore respect for the Constitution and to compel obedience to the judgments of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal. This concerns in particular the judgment of 2020, which eliminated the eugenic ground from the legal order and ensured the protection of children with Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome, and other congenital defects. Instead of consistently applying this protection, Poland – without any change of statutes – has today found itself in the company of North Korea, China, and Vietnam.

The “Pro-Life Encyclopedia” – New Edition and Chatbot

The conference was an occasion to present two significant publishing novelties. First – an English-language version of the “Pro-Life Encyclopedia” has appeared, available on the encyklopediaprolife.pl portal, which European pro-life movements had long been awaiting. Second – both the Polish and the English edition of the Encyclopedia has been enriched with a chatbot, enabling the rapid search of information in a knowledge base of scientific scholarship running to nearly a thousand pages. As Kwaśniewski explained, the new tool makes it possible in a few seconds to find an argument needed in the public debate – by a journalist, a student, or a person running social media. The base on which the chatbot is built consists exclusively of peer-reviewed scholarly materials in the fields of law, medicine, and the social sciences, which guarantees the reliability of the answers provided. The English-language Encyclopedia also contains the full ranking of life protection discussed at the conference. The “Pro-Life Encyclopedia” is the fruit of a broad project initiated by the Ordo Iuris Institute – more about its history and content can be read in the account of the debate organized on the occasion of its first edition in 2023.

Prayer as an Element of the Defense of Life

Marcin Perłowski, Director of the Center for Life and Family, drew attention to the spiritual dimension of the defense of life, hitherto often overlooked in the public debate. The Center organizes daily prayers by the so-called “Abotak” abortion center on Wiejska Street, in the vicinity of the Polish Sejm. The next will take place this very day at 5:00 p.m. Marcin Perłowski pointed to the experience of the United States, where systematic prayer in front of Planned Parenthood clinics contributed to changing women’s decisions and, in a broader perspective, to the closing of those facilities. As one of the first fruits of prayer, the Director of the Center for Life and Family identified the recent withdrawal of one of the sponsors of the Abortion Dream Team, whose activity – as he noted – consists in helping to put unborn children to death beyond all norms of the law.

See also:

• A Guide for Polish Doctors Who Refuse to Comply with the Tusk Government’s Unlawful Abortion Guidelines
• Ordo Iuris Reminds Polish Hospitals That Freedom of Conscience Is Guaranteed to Everyone
• Tusk Government’s Abortion Guidelines Constitute Incitement to Murder — Ordo Iuris Notifies Prosecutor’s Office

Photos: Tomasz Daniluk/Ordo Iuris