Left party pushes to ease Poland’s strict abortion laws

10 months ago 42

The liberalisation of abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy and the decriminalisation of the performance of abortions were the legislative proposals tabled by MPs of the Left in an effort to liberalise the country’s strict abortion law.

The topic of abortion was a hot issue during the elections – many people remember well the wave of public outrage and mass protests that followed the unpopular verdict by the Constitutional Tribunal, dominated by the nominees of the ruling Law and Justice party, in autumn 2020, which effectively banned abortion.

The decision introduced additional restrictions in the already illiberal European standards law on abortion; abortions caused by fetal defects have been banned (pregnancies from rape, incest and those threatening the life of the mothers can still be removed).

Since the verdict of the Constitutional Tribunal, several pregnant women whose foetuses did not develop properly have died, and doctors waited with the termination of the pregnancy for the spontaneous death of the foetus in order not to expose themselves to legal consequences.

Many Polish women and men hope to liberalise the current abortion law under a likely new liberal government; 80% of those surveyed are in favour of liberalising abortion laws.

Although the parties promising voters legal abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy are part of the democratic opposition that won the election, the issue of abortion is not yet a foregone conclusion.

The centrist coalition Third Way, which has 66 MPs, is sceptical about abortion. The formation’s politicians do want to reinstate abortion laws from before the 2020 ruling, but they make the legalisation of the procedure up to the 12th week of pregnancy contingent on a decision by Poles in a popular referendum.

Without their support, the proposal to liberalise abortion has little chance of being voted through.

Similar uncertainties have also arisen on the issue of long-awaited same-sex marriages, against which Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, one of the leaders of the Third Way, among others, has spoken out.

In October, the head of the Left Party club, Krzysztof Gawkowski, stated that his party had no intention of “cutting the backbone” of Kosiniak-Kamysz’s party politicians.

(Bartosz Sieniawski | Euractiv.pl)