Bangladesh, Nov. 14 -- The debate over reproductive rights in Poland has once again returned to the spotlight, this time through a landmark judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In a ruling delivered on November 13, Europes top rights court found that Poland violated the private life of a woman who had to travel abroad for an abortion-an outcome that the judges attributed to legal uncertainty created by the countrys own institutions. The verdict underscores not only the personal trauma experienced by the woman but also the broader constitutional and political turmoil that has shaped Polands abortion landscape in recent years.

The case began when a woman from Krakow, 15 weeks pregnant, received devastating news: her fetus...