A Polish anti-abortion group has sparked controversy by using pictures of Hitler and a bloody and torn foetus in a billboard campaign designed to ensure Poles adhere to the country's strict abortion laws.

The provocative images, which appeared in the western city of Poznan as a part of a promised nationwide campaign, also carry the slogan "Abortion for Poles: introduced by Hitler, March 9, 1943."

Fundacja Pro, the organisation behind the billboard, said that it wanted to remind Poles that abortion was first introduced to Poland during the Second World War by the country's Nazi occupiers as a means of limiting the population of a people they deemed inferior.