No Apologies Please, We're Catholic

One of my earliest blogposts at Birth Pangs was about a Polish woman named Alicja Tysiac. She was pregnant for the third time and severely myopic. She worried that continuing the pregnancy would deteriorate her vision further.

She consulted three ophthalmologists, who each concluded her eyesight would be further damaged if she carried the pregnancy to term. But they refused to issue a certificate for the pregnancy to be terminated on medical grounds, despite Tysiac’s requests. . . . After the delivery, her eyesight deteriorated considerably as a result of what was diagnosed as a retinal hemorrhage.

She took the state of Poland to the European Court of Human Rights and won. She has since become something of a heroine to reproductive rights activists there in their battle against Poland's draconian abortion law.

And for that, she's become a demon to Polish fetus fetishists. A vicious article in a catlick magazine characterized her as a murderer and abortion as Nazi crimes.

It seems that was a bit much, even in Poland. The magazine has been ordered by a court to pay her damages and apologize to her.

Judge Ewa Solecka ruled Wednesday that Catholics are free to express their moral disapproval of abortion — and even call it murder — but in a general way that stops short of vilifying an individual.

Solecka ordered the magazine, Gosc Niedzielny, which is published by the Katowice archdiocese, to pay Alicja Tysiac 30,000 zlotys (nearly $11,000) and issue her a written apology.

Solecka said the magazine's language was "particularly contemptuous" of Tysiac.

Natch, the magazine plans to appeal, because as we all know, if there's one thing catlicks hate even more than abortion, it's apologizing.

MORE: Go read Sabina at News of the Restless.