2023-11-14 14:32:14
While Poland has one of the most restrictive laws in Europe regarding abortion, the Polish left intends to change it. MPs from the United Left have thus tabled two bills aimed at legalizing the right to abortion, MP Anna Maria Zukowska told Agence France-Presse on Tuesday, November 14.
One of the bills “provides for the complete legalization of the right to termination of pregnancy up to the twelfth week of gestation (…) and the other specifically decriminalizes assisted abortion”, detailed the elected official. The two bills were tabled on Monday, the first day of the inauguration session of the new Polish Parliament.
But to be promulgated, all legislative initiatives once adopted, apart from the budget vote, require the signature of the head of state, Andrzej Duda, member of the losing ultraconservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, in power since 2015, and in place at least until the spring 2025 presidential election.
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Democratic majority wins Diet presidency
Monday’s election of the speaker of the Diet, the lower house of Parliament, during the first parliamentary session after the victory of the Democrats in the legislative elections of October 15 clearly showed a balance of power in the new Polish Assembly.
The candidate of the democratic coalition (made up of the liberals of the Civic Platform, the conservatives and agrarians of the Third Way and the United Left), Szymon Holownia, obtained 265 votes, against 193 for the candidate of the outgoing conservative national party Law and Justice (PiS), Elzbieta Witek. Isolated, the PiS could not even count on the votes of Konfederacja’s far right.
The legalization of the right to abortion is on the agenda of two of the three pro-European parties, that of the left and that of Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO). “We will strengthen women’s rights, which will constitute a key area of the coalition’s activities. We will invalidate the judgment of the Constitutional Court of 2020 [qui a entraîné une quasi-interdiction de l’avortement]. Women have the right to decide for themselves”also says the agreement signed between the three groups, although not going far enough for the left.
Abortion almost illegal since 2020
Poland, a traditionally Catholic country, already had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe when the Constitutional Court sided with the populist-nationalist government in 2020 by declaring the termination of pregnancy for fetal malformation “unconstitutional”. They are only authorized in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger.
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The anti-abortion law theoretically allows doctors to perform an abortion if the woman’s life is in danger, but in practice it is so restrictive that doctors are afraid to do so. The law also provides for up to three years in prison for anyone who terminates a pregnancy or anyone who assists or induces a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy.
In March, a Polish activist, Justyna Wydrzynska, was sentenced by a Warsaw court to community service for assisting in an abortion, an unprecedented case in Poland.
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