Poland violated human rights of woman who was refused timely access to prenatal tests.

A pregnant Polish woman was subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment when anti-abortion doctors denied her timely access to prenatal tests to determine whether the fetus she was carrying had congenital abnormalities, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. The Strasbourg court, which held that her right to respect for her private and family life was also violated, ordered Poland to pay her €45 000 (£40 000; $65 000) in non-pecuniary damages and €15 000 in legal costs and expenses. The woman, named only as RR, was a married mother of two who was 18 weeks pregnant in February 2002 when after an ultrasound scan she was told by her family doctor, SB, that he could not rule out the possibility that the fetus was malformed. If so, she told him, she would want an abortion, as permitted by Polish law up to the point where the fetus is capable of independent life—generally considered to be about 24 weeks. But delays and procrastination meant that by the time she received the result of genetic tests she was past the point for a legal abortion. She gave birth to a girl with Turner syndrome and her husband subsequently left her. After the initial scan, two further scans had confirmed the likelihood of fetal abnormalities and amniocentesis was recommended. RR saw a specialist in clinical genetics who suggested she ask SB for a formal referral to a public hospital in Lodz for the procedure but he refused. In the first week of March RR and her husband asked SB, while he was on night duty at hospital T, to perform a termination. He refused. On 14March she travelled to the university hospital in Krakow, 150 km away, to which she had been referred by hospital T. The doctor she saw criticised her for considering an abortion and refused to authorise genetic tests. She was told that the hospital categorically refused to carry out terminations and that no abortion had been carried out there for 150 years. After a further scan showed fetal abnormalities she reported to hospital as an emergency patient, without a referral, and had an amniocentesis on 26 March, in the 23rd week of pregnancy. She was told she would have to wait two weeks for the result. On 9 April she received the results which confirmed that her unborn child had Turner syndrome, but she was again refused an abortion because the time limit had passed. She gave birth to a girl with the syndrome on 11 July 2002. The judges, who found in favour of RR by a majority of six to one, said she had experienced “considerable anguish and suffering” and had been “humiliated by doctors’ lack of sensibility to her plight.” The state had breached RR’s right to respect for her private and family life by failing to create an effective mechanism by which she could access diagnostic services relevant for establishing that she was entitled to an abortion under Polish law, the judges said.