Only those who support introducing the right to abortion on demand will be allowed to stand as candidates for his party in next year’s election, says Donald Tusk, the leader of Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s main opposition group.
Abortion has long been a divisive issue for the centrist PO, which contains both more liberal elements, who favour liberalising access to abortion, and more conservative ones, who favour the relatively strict abortion law that was in place before a near-total ban was introduced last year.
But, speaking yesterday at Campus Polska, an event organised by PO deputy leader and Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, Tusk declared that decisions on abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy “will be solely up to the woman” if his party comes to power.
Osoby, które uznają inaczej niż prawo kobiety do aborcji (do 12. tygodnia) nie znajdą miejsca na listach PO do parlamentu – zapowiedział @donaldtusk na @Campus_Polska @RadioNowySwiat
— Klaudiusz Slezak 🚴♂️ (@KlaudiuszSlezak) August 31, 2022
“Someone may mention that PO has not been consistent on this for many years,” he admitted. “But I will enforce [discipline] on this so that a law [introducing abortion up to 12 weeks] will pass…People who think differently will not find themselves on PO’s [electoral] lists for parliament.”
In June, Tusk confirmed that, if they come to power, he and his party want to introduce a law allowing abortion up to 12 weeks based on a “decision made by the woman in consultation with a doctor”. Last year, PO said that such abortions were intended for women in an “extremely difficult personal situation”.
As well as causing potential splits within PO, Tusk’s stance on abortion could also make it harder to create the united opposition coalition that he favours, which would include more conservative parties.
Miłosz Motyka, spokesman for the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL), said that Tusk’s remarks have “ruled out a joint [opposition] list” for the elections. However, senior PO figure Radosław Sikorski sought to play down such concerns, telling Radio Zet that PO would not apply its rule to allied parties.
Speaking yesterday at Campus Polska, Tusk also rejected the idea of holding a referendum on the abortion law, an idea favoured by Szymon Hołownia, the leader of Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), a rival centrist group. Such a vote would be a “dangerous experiment”, said Tusk.
Figures from Poland’s national-conservative ruling camp have also seized on Tusk’s abortion remarks as an example of the choice Poles will face at parliamentary elections scheduled to take place next year.
That vote will “not only be a battle to preserve Poland’s sovereignty in the EU, which Tusk’s PO wants to hand over to Brussels and Berlin”, tweeted Janusz Kowalski, an MP from the ruling coalition, but “also a battle over whether unborn children can be killed in Poland and whether homosexuals will get the right to adopt”.
Last year, a near-total ban on abortion was introduced as a result of a ruling by the constitutional court, a body widely seen as being under the influence of the ruling party, which has also declared its support for the tougher abortion rules.
As a result, in 2021 the number of legal abortions fell by 90%, with the majority of 107 legal abortions carried out in Poland likely to have taken place in the 27 days before the new rules came into force in late January.
Most opposition parties have declared support for either returning to the previous abortion law – which was already one of the strictest in Europe – or for liberalising it even further to introduce abortion on demand.
Opinion polls from May and June this year, carried out by IBRiS and Ipsos, show that over 60% of Poles support liberalisation of the law. The Ipsos poll found that 88% of those who support Civic Coalition (a group dominated by PO) are in favour of women having the right to terminate pregnancy up to 12 weeks.
Main image credit: Robert Robaszewski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
