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Poland To Debate Liberalizing Abortion Despite Massive ‘March for Life’

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

WARSAW (Worthy News) – The Polish parliament is to debate overturning what critics view as Europe’s most restrictive abortion regulations despite thousands of protesters saying it could violate the rights of the unborn.

Currently, the procedure is permitted only if the life or health of the mother is at risk or in cases of rape or incest.

Extending abortion rights was a significant election pledge by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, but it took four months since his center-left coalition came to power before liberalizing the termination of pregnancy was on the agenda of the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.

His Left alliance wants abortion to be permitted up to the 12th week of pregnancy and to be paid for by the state. It also demands abortion to be decriminalized by deleting Section 152 of the Criminal Code, which provides for prison sentences of up to three years for abortion assistance.

Previously, a woman’s next of kin were often at risk for prosecution: parents or husbands who had, for example, procured money for the abortion.

The conservative coalition Third Way proposed the old compromise of 1993, which allowed abortion even in the case of fetal abnormalities. It was later removed by the Constitutional Tribunal in 2020 at the suggestion of the then ruling national-conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS). The plan also includes a referendum on how far liberalization should go.

With much at stake in the traditional Catholic country, a further debate on the abortion rights legislation introduced by the New Left was delayed by parliamentary speaker Szymon Holownia.

POSTPONING DEBATE

He postponed the debate, which was supposed to take place after the first round of local elections on April 7, to the week after the second and final round, on April 21.

Commentators said he feared that a dispute within the coalition could hurt the election result. Yet news of the new debate has worried tens of thousands of people who said they wanted to express their “support for the lives of unborn children.”

Poland’s “National March for Life” on Sunday was backed by the influential Polish Bishops’ Conference. Held under the motto “Long Live Poland,” the gathering of an estimated 50,000 people in Warsaw, the capital, was aimed at pressuring parliament to reconsider the bills to legalize abortion.

“Our march is an affirmation of life, an affirmation of the family, an affirmation of all the basic rights of every human being,” said the March’s spokeswoman, Lidia Sankowska-Grabczuk.

She called the government’s plans to liberalize abortion a “revolution that is moving like a battering ram, which wants to limit the rights of parents and the rights of people to life.”

She said thousands were “also marching in a strong sign of defiance to contain the demographic collapse” in Europe. Back in Parliament, the initial introduction of the new abortion legislation led to tensions.

“Old men in suits will no longer decide what women must do with their bodies,” shouted Anna Maria Zukowska, a member of parliament for the co-governing The Left alliance, at the presentation of the bill on Friday. “No more hell for women!”

‘WOMEN DYING’

Critics say in recent years, “several women have died” because doctors refused to perform an abortion or have done so too late for fear of criminal prosecution.

Opponents of abortion say the government should encourage women to keep their babies in a safe environment.

Conservative lawmaker Dariusz Matecki entered the chamber recently with a banner depicting a 10-week-old fetus and played sounds meant to represent the heartbeat of the unborn child.

Far-right politician Roman Fritz accused the “abortion lobby” of having adopted the ideas of Germany’s Nazi-era leader Adolf Hitler. You are the “avant-garde of the civilization of death,” he said, addressing the governing Left.

Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming parliamentary debate, critics say that Polish women seeking abortion will likely still have to travel to the Czech Republic, Germany, or the Netherlands.

Analysts expect conservative President Andrzej Duda to veto softening abortion legislation and say the coalition lacks the necessary three-fifths majority to overrule the head of state.

Commentators say a “liberal abortion law” can only come into force after Duda leaves office in mid-2025 when a more pro-abortion candidate, such as Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, may be elected as his successor.