A Compromise—or a Lie? A Voice in the Controversy over the Scope of Legislation on Human Life Protection in Poland

Piotr ŚLĘCZKA SDS

Centrum Formacji Duchowej, ul. Głowackiego 3, 32-540 Trzebinia, Poland , Poland

Abstract

In the fall of 2016, it became apparent that the civil initiative to widen the extent of legal protection of the lives of the unborn will not find a political support from the members of the Polish Parliament. The public debate on the ‘permissible’ scope of abortion in Poland involved debates among publicists, journalists, and politicians, but also certain Catholic philosophers, in particular ethicists, among them Fr. Alfred Wierzbicki. However, Fr. Wierzbicki’s thesis that a ‘wise’ law will leave the decision as to whether the life of an unborn child should continue to the child’s mother, is rendered impossible within personalist ethics. The paper embraces a polemic with Fr. Wierzbicki’s view and advances a criticism of the ‘argument to moderation,’ put forward by the proponents of preserving unchanged the 1993 legal regulation which made it possible to perform abortion under certain circumstances. The nexus of the criticism thus formulated is the twofold (logical and ethical) analysis of the law-making procedures accepted by the Polish Parliament. As it turns out, it is precisely these procedures that make it impossible for its pro-life members to cast their votes on the issue of ‘permissibility’ of abortion in a way that would enable them to manifest their axiological standpoint in a coherent way, and thus to follow their consciences.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Keywords:

abortion, right to life, compromise, ethics of the law