POLAND:Poland's education minister and deputy premier, Roman Giertych, has called for an EU-wide ban on abortion, which he called "a new form of barbarism".
His anti-abortion remarks come as a cross-party commission of the Polish parliament recommended yesterday changing the constitution to state that human rights are inalienable from the moment of conception.
That paves the way to a parliamentary vote which could restrict abortion laws. Mr Giertych's ultra-Catholic League of Polish Families (LPR), the smallest grouping in Warsaw's three-party coalition, favours banning abortion entirely, as does a section of the largest coalition party, Law and Justice (PiS).
Mr Giertych called for a "great charter of European nation rights" that would also ban "homosexual propaganda". A spokesman for the Polish government said Mr Giertych's views were not that of the government.
Mr Giertych's father, MEP Maciej Giertych, last week produced a booklet bearing the European Parliament logo in which he wrote that Jews were a "biologically separate" people who live in ghettos and are drawn to "rich people".