Thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities across Poland after a pregnant woman died when medical workers refused to provide her with a life-saving abortion.

Warsaw, June 16 (RHC)-- Thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities across Poland after a pregnant woman died when medical workers refused to provide her with a life-saving abortion. 

Thirty-three-year-old Dorota Lalik died of sepsis in May, three days after her water broke and she was admitted to the John Paul II hospital.  The hospital has deep ties to the Catholic Church, and medical staff there opted out of providing abortion care, citing a so-called conscience clause allowed under Polish law. 

A protest organizer at the pro-choice march in Warsaw, Magdalena, told reporters: "I'm protesting here because I do not agree with women dying, that they have no choice, that doctors have a so-called conscience clause.  If they want conscience clauses, they would change their profession.  Women are dying because of them, and also because of the law that has been established in Poland.”