The Polish Sejm intends to soften the legislation on abortion

On Friday, the Polish Parliament voted to start work on softening the law on abortion. The Seimas developed four versions of amendments to the law. They will be submitted for consideration by a special parliamentary commission.

In two of these documents, it is proposed to allow artificial termination of pregnancy at the woman’s request for a period of up to 12 weeks, as in most European countries. The third is to decriminalize the abortion procedure. In the fourth – it will be allowed to terminate the pregnancy if incurable deformities and malformations are found in the fetus. Polish women lost this right when the abortion legislation was tightened again in 2020.

It is still unclear how long it will take to discuss the amendments in the parliamentary committee. The Reuters agency notes that even if the commission approves them, the draft law is likely to be blocked by the current president Andrzej Duda, using the right of veto, whose PiS party supported the tightening of laws in this area. In this case, the following laws will soften the demands, and the next president will be able to implement them if he adheres to less conservative views. The next presidential election in Poland will be held in the summer of 2025.

• At the moment, Polish laws regarding abortion are among the most severe in the world. Termination of pregnancy at the will of a woman is not allowed. Until 2020, legal abortion was possible only in three situations: if the pregnancy occurred as a result of rape, if the continuation of the pregnancy threatens the life of the woman, and if the fetus is diagnosed with incurable developmental defects. In 2020, the Constitutional Court removed the last reason from the law.
• In 2022, a total of 161 abortion procedures were performed in medical facilities in Poland. The result of the practical ban on abortions is the growth of “abortion tourism” in other countries and underground abortions, which pose a risk to the life and health of women. In addition, even when there are legal indications for abortion, Polish doctors are often afraid that they will be accused of a crime, which has already led to the death of women several times. These cases caused mass protests in Poland.
• Groups for the protection of women’s rights indicate that the actual number of abortions among Polish women, carried out either underground or in other countries, reaches 80–120 thousand.