"Hundreds" of people have descended to George Square this evening to protest against new abortion laws in Poland. 

A court ruling held on Thursday banned women from accessing abortions under almost all circumstances, with exemptions in cases of rape, incest or where the mother's health is put at risk. 

In the ruling, abortion was also outlawed in the circumstance where the foetus is malformed - which accounted for 98 per cent of legal terminations last year, according to the BBC. 

Glasgow Times:

Dunja Mijatović, the human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, condemned the ruling and deemed it a “sad day for women’s rights.”

She said: "Removing the basis for almost all legal abortions in Poland amounts to a ban and violates human rights.

“Today’s ruling of the Constitutional Court means underground/abroad abortions for those who can afford and even greater ordeal for all others.”

Around 200 protestors have gathered at George Square displaying plaques and flags with the words "stop new drastic anti-abortion law in Poland" written across them. 

The city demonstration comes after hundreds of protestors took to the streets in Poznan, Warsaw, Wroclaw and Krakow on Friday.  

In the early hours of Friday morning, reports show protesters clashed with riot police outside the Warsaw home of Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who heads the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Glasgow Times:

It is understood police officers used pepper spray and physical force after demonstrators threw stones and tried to push a cordon around the Deputy Prime Minister's home. 

Protesters gathered near his home again on Friday night, carrying signs with messages such as "This is war" and "You have blood on your hands".

Magda, a 34-year-old protester in the northern city of Gdynia, told TVN: "Women are not respected in this country. No-one is listening to us."

"It's a disgrace from the Polish state towards half of the population, women. We'll never forget it," Krystyna Kacpura, head of the Federation for Women and Family Planning, told AFP news agency.