Polish legislators reject abortion ban after protests
Print Edition
POLAND’S parliament yesterday rejected an abortion ban after massive nationwide protests.
Right-wing and liberal parliamentarians in the 450-member lower house joined forces to vote 352 against 58 to reject the bill, with 18 abstentions.
The vote came after tens of thousands of black-clad women protested across Poland on Monday, as solidarity demonstrations sprang up in European capitals including Berlin, London and Paris.
Poland is a devoutly Catholic nation where abortion legislation is already among the most restrictive in Europe. Home to 38 million people, Poland sees less than 2,000 legal abortions a year, but women’s groups estimate that a further 100,000 to 150,000 procedures are performed illegally or abroad.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party told parliament before the vote that his group “would always support protecting the right to life,” but said proponents of the ban were not going about protecting the right to life “in the best way.”
While the PiS once favored introducing a near-total ban on abortion, the party is well aware that a strong majority of Poles support existing legislation that allows terminations in certain cases.
PiS lawmakers had pushed ahead late last month with the controversial bill that would allow abortions only if the mother’s life was at risk and would increase the maximum jail term for practitioners from two years to five.
The citizens’ initiative tabled in parliament by the Stop Abortion coalition would have put women who had terminations at risk of jail terms, though judges could waive punishment.
Poland’s influential Catholic Church initially gave the initiative its seal of approval earlier this year, though bishops have since spoken out against jailing women.
A poll published last month by “Newsweek Polska” magazine showed 74 percent of Poles wanted to keep the existing law.
Passed in 1993, current restrictive legislation bans all abortions unless there was rape or incest, the pregnancy poses a health risk to the mother or the fetus is severely deformed.
Liberal opposition MP and former Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, who is also a physician, said: “The PiS backtracked on the ban because it was scared by all the women who hit the streets in protest.”
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