Dr Bogdan Chazan has been dismissed for refusing to carry out an abortion on religious grounds.

Dr Bogdan Chazan has been dismissed for refusing to carry out an abortion on religious grounds. Photo: Reuters

Warsaw: The head of a Polish public hospital has been dismissed for refusing, on religious grounds, to carry out an abortion on a woman whose unborn baby suffered from serious malformations.

The mayor of Warsaw ordered the dismissal of Bogdan Chazan, after the doctor invoked his Catholic faith to refuse to carry out the procedure, a city hall spokesman said on Thursday.

"A doctor can refuse to carry out an abortion on moral grounds, but a public hospital cannot," spokesman Bartosz Milczarczyk said.

The woman was referred to another public hospital, but by then she was five days past the legal 24-week abortion limit.

She carried the child to term, giving birth on June 30, only for the baby to die nine days later, on Wednesday, Polish media reported.

Staunchly-Catholic Poland allows abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy in cases of rape or incest, or 24 weeks in cases of irreversible fetal malformation or a threat to the mother's life.

After that time the procedure can be allowed on a case-by-case basis if the mother's life is at risk.

State prosecutors in the Polish capital have opened an investigation into the woman's case, while her lawyer is seeking damages from the hospital.

The doctor's dismissal has polarised debate between pro-choice and anti-abortion camps in the country, whose abortion laws are among the most restrictive in Europe.

Cardinal-Archbishop of Warsaw, Kazimierz Nycz, dubbed Dr Chazan's dismissal "a dangerous precedent", breaching constitutional guarantees for freedom of conscience.

"Politicians cannot make doctors act against their conscience," he said.

But Wanda Nowicka, deputy speaker of parliament and a women's rights advocate, said while it isn't the first time a woman was refused her right to a legal abortion, "this time the state decided not to sweep it under the rug and is dealing with it".

Women's rights groups have hailed the decision to dismiss Dr Chazan as both legal and appropriate.

Agence France-Presse