In Poland, the Supreme Court decided to ban abortions in almost every case, with the only exceptions being pregnacies that either endanger the life of the mother or are the result of rape or incest. These newly imposed limitations essentially mean that almost the entirety of 1.000 annual abortions will be illegal. The vast majority of them (98%, according to the official data) were performed, because the fetus suffered from very serious defects, like Down syndrome, which guaranteed that it will either be dead at birth or will be impaired by permanent disabilities. The reasoning of the court's verdict relied on the assumption that the previous legislation violated the Constitution, by discriminating against the right of life, which is why many proponents of the ban labelled abortion as eugenics.
However, the process began after an initiative of right-wing lawmakers of the dominant Law and Justice party. After all, Poland is notoriously lacking in judicial independence, which has been constantly declining in the late years, while the members of the Supreme Court are nominated by the government. Moreover, the party is notorious for its ultra-conservative position, opposition to abortion and secularism, as well homophobia. Its political power is based on the south-western part of Poland, where the Catholic Church enjoys remarkable influence and where several municipalities controlled by Law and Justice have declared themselves as LGBT-free zones. However, the abortion ban is much less popular in large urban centers, in the more prosperous provinces of north-western Poland and among the youth, which explains the large size of the protests, despite the issues caused by the measures taken for the pandemic crisis.
In my opinion, the verdict of the judges is a reactionary move that drives Poland several decades backwards in a time, when other Catholic countries, such as Ireland, are finally progressing towards a modernisation of the abortion laws. Focusing on the abortions seems like a typical case of populist pandering to a certain demographic, in this case, Christian fundamentalists, at the expense of the affected groups. It will probably lead the most affluent women to visit abortion clinics abroad (e.g. Germany), while the healthcare system will probably be burdened with looking after abandoned, disabled babies and mothers at severe risk of dying, after having performed illegal abortions under unsafe circumstances.