Obstetrician Bogdan Chazan was fired by Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz in July for not offering either an abortion or a referral in a timely manner for a woman carrying a fetus with severe birth defects, according to the Associated Press. Polish law would have allowed the woman to obtain an abortion before her 25^th week of pregnancy.

Dr. Chazan is one of 3,000 Polish doctors, many of whom work at state-funded hospitals, who have signed a “Declaration of Faith” citing religious reasons for their refusal to provide abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization and euthanasia. Such healthcare services are a “threat to the eternal life” of providers, said Dr. Wanda Półtawska, one of the declaration’s authors and friend of the late Pope John Paul II, to Polskie Radio. These considerations supersede the patient’s needs because, according to the petition, “God’s law stands above human laws.”

Prime Minister Donald Tusk sided with the woman, who gave birth to a child with severe birth defects and who lived only 10 days, portraying a different set of priorities for physicians. “Regardless of what his conscience is telling him, [a doctor] must carry out the law. Every patient must be sure that … the doctor will perform all procedures in accordance with the law and in accordance with his duties,” he said, according to the Warsaw Voice.