A foundation run by Poland’s most prominent anti-abortion activist, Kaja Godek, has submitted a citizen’s initiative to the parliament that would further tighten one of the already strictest abortion laws in Europe.
The draft legislation, entitled “Abortion is murder”, would introduce a ban on “public advocacy” as well as “information” on the possibility of terminating a pregnancy. It would also see recognition of “inciting to abortion” as a crime carrying up to eight years in jail.
While it is not known when the Sejm will debate the proposal, women’s rights organisations warn it would make it more difficult to help those in need of support in difficult situations.
Godek’s NGO, the Life and Family (Życie i Rodzina) Foundation, has already tabled bills proposing to ban abortions on grounds of foetal abnormality (the bill was held by the Sejm for further work, but such terminations were later effectively banned by a Constitutional Court ruling) and a bill banning the “promotion of homosexuality” and pride parades.
The legislation she proposes now would prohibit “public advocacy of any actions concerning the possibility of terminating a pregnancy,” “public incitement to abort a pregnancy” and “public information about the possibility of aborting a pregnancy” in and outside of Poland.
The only two exceptions provided for in the bill are identical to those currently in force in Polish law: when a woman’s life or health is at risk and when the pregnancy is the result of rape.
The bill also provides for imposing penalties for “producing, fixing, importing, acquiring, storing, possessing, presenting, transporting or transmitting print, recordings or other objects or data carriers” containing the aforementioned content. These acts would be punishable by up to two years of imprisonment.
“lnciting” a woman to abort a pregnancy would be punishable by up to three years in prison, and up to eight years if the child already had the capacity to live independently outside the woman’s body. If the woman died, the punishment would go as high as 12 years in prison.
According to women’s rights groups and activists, the bill is directed at organisations helping women access abortion pills and abortion clinics abroad, which have been at the forefront of the fight for abortion rights in Poland since the 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling amounted to a near-total ban on abortion.
“Not a single repressive bill banning abortion will eradicate the phenomenon of abortion,” said Wanda Nowicka, an MP from The Left (Lewica) and a founder of the Federation for Women and Family Planning, a union of non-governmental organisations working for the right of women to decide whether and when to have children.
“Women will continue to abort as they have been aborting up to now, they are aborting and they will continue to abort. It is simply that women sometimes need this abortion and therefore must have access to legal abortion.”
In a protest against the proposal, activists and politicians posted the telephone number for one of these organisations, Abortion Without Borders, on their social media.
Kaja Godek w najnowszym projekcie obywatelskim, chce kary do 2 lat więzienia za informowanie o tym jak i gdzie można dokonać aborcji🤡
Nas to nie przestraszy, więc przypominamy: Potrzebujesz aborcji za granicą? Dzwoń -Aborcja Bez Granic: 22 29 22 597💚— Klara Uchańska🏳️🌈🇪🇺🇺🇦 (@KlaraUchanska) December 22, 2022
Earlier this year, the Polish parliament rejected a citizen’s bill proposing to liberalise the country’s abortion law by allowing terminations on demand up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, while polls show that public support for abortion on demand until this moment has been growing.
Facing the nearing election campaign ahead of the next year’s general election, the leader of Civic Platform (PO) Donald Tusk has promised to loosen Poland’s strict abortion laws and introduce same-sex civil partnerships, if his party wins the election. He also pledged to only include supporters of abortion on demand as election candidates representing his party, previously divided on the issue.
Main photo credit: Fundacja Życie i Rodzina – Polska / Facebook
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
