Poland should give children wider access to abortions, fight against “gender stereotypes” and imprison homophobes, a United Nations (UN) document has demanded.
The document, which was produced by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, has provoked anger in Poland, which remains staunchly Catholic and does not have a single left-wing MP in its parliament.
One newspaper said it looked like “it was written at the request of leftist politicians”, while another called it “absurd!”
The document calls for Poland to “make the conditions for abortion less restrictive and, in relation to adolescent girls, to reflect the right of the child to express her views and the best interests of the child.” It also commands Poland to “establish clear standards for a uniform and non-restrictive interpretation of the conditions for legal abortion and relevant procedures”.
In one of the most controversial recommendations, it even calls for an end to so-called “windows of life” – small rooms built into the walls of convents where desperate mothers can leave unwanted children.
Bartosz Lewandowski of the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture slammed the report, calling the UN committee “schizophrenic”.He told Radio Maryja:
“That is a bizarre situation if the Committee on the Rights of the Child calls to ensure that these children can be killed. It is a schizophrenic situation. We have yet another example of how European institutions and international organisations are made to serve a specific purpose.”
The UN also says that “gender stereotypes concerning the roles and responsibilities of women and men in the family and society persist” in the deeply Catholic nation, while another section tells Poland to introduce new hate crime laws to “define hate speech and other hate crimes motivated by racism, xenophobia and homophobia as specific punishable offences.”
The UN committee, which is notorious for its left-liberal views, previously urged the Holy See to change Church teaching on homosexuality, contraception and abortion. The Vatican responded that the committee has no power to demand such a change.
Stanisław Szwed, the Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy, said the Polish government will not change the country’s abortion law. The Law and Justice Party, who won last month’s parliamentary elections and formally took power this week, campaigned on protecting life and the family.
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