This article contains references to rape/sexual assault/incest.
Protesters have gathered in Poland to pay tribute to a woman who they believe is the first victim of the country's controversial abortion law.
They assembled in front of the Constitutional Tribunal in the country's capital, Warsaw, where they lit candles.
There were also gatherings in Krakow, Gdansk, and other parts of the country.
Some attendees were seen wearing red dresses and white bonnets, the outfit worn by characters in the TV series The Handmaid's Tale, which tells the story of a fictional repressive, totalitarian religious regime where women live without reproductive and human rights.
The 30-year-old woman was admitted to hospital in September in her 22nd week of pregnancy because her foetus lacked amniotic fluid.
Demonstrators gathered in front of the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw, Poland to protest against strict abortion laws. Source: Getty Images
Doctors did not perform an abortion and instead waited for the foetus to die, according to a lawyer for the family.
She later died of septic shock, but her case was only made public on Friday.
The woman is understood to have left behind a husband and daughter.
Poland introduced a stringent law almost two decades ago that banned abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when a pregnancy threatens a mother's health or life.
But in October last year, the law was further toughened when the Constitutional Tribunal, influenced by Poland's conservative ruling party, ruled that abortions for congenital defects were not constitutional.
The tighter restrictions mean that doctors waited too long to act, the family's lawyer argued.
Reproductive rights activists have said the woman is the first person to die in the wake of the ruling.
The hospital where she passed away issued a statement on Tuesday local time, saying they were "joined in pain" with those mourning her.
“The only factor guiding the medical procedure was concern for the health and life of the patient and the foetus. Doctors and midwives did everything in their power, they fought a difficult battle for the patient and her child,” the statement from the County hospital in Pszczyna in southern Poland said, .
People gathered in front of ruling Law and Justice party office Gdansk, Poland, to protest against the country's abortion ban. Source: NurPhoto
Jerzy Kwasniewski, president of the ultra-conservative Catholic group Ordo Iuris, who lobbied for the abortion crackdown, warned people should not jump to conclusions about what happened.
The hospital said that prosecutors were investigating the death.
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