Polish parliament approves first steps in ending near-total abortion ban

Apr 12, 2024 | Law, Politics

The ruling majority in parliament has voted for bills aimed at ending the near-total abortion ban introduced under the previous conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government to proceed for further legislative work.

The development represents a show of unity among the members of the ruling coalition, which stretches from the socially liberal left to the conservative centre-right. However, further progress will be harder given that views differ between the partners on how far liberalisation of the law should go.

Before 2021, Poland’s abortion law was already one of the strictest in Europe, allowing terminations in only three circumstances: if a pregnancy threatened the mother’s life or health; if it resulted from a criminal act such as rape; or if a severe defect was diagnosed in the foetus.

In October 2020, the Constitutional Tribunal (TK), a body seen as being under the influence of the then-ruling PiS party, outlawed the third of those circumstances, which had previously made up over 90% of legal abortions. The ruling went into force in January 2021.

Today, three bills came before the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, that sought to overturn that near-total abortion ban. Each was submitted by one of the three main groups in the ruling coalition that replaced PiS in power in December.

The centrist Civic Coalition (KO), led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and The Left (Lewica) each put forward bills that would allow abortion on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy. The centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) proposed a return to the pre-2021 status quo.

A fourth bill, submitted by The Left, additionally would partially decriminalise helping women obtain abortions, which under current law is a crime carrying a prison sentence.

In four votes held on Friday afternoon, a majority of MPs approved the passage of each bill to the next stage of the legislative process, meaning they will now be discussed further in committee. Each of the bills will still require a further vote in the Sejm to move forward.

In each of the four cases, all of the votes favouring further passage of the bills came from the ruling coalition. However, in the case of KO’s bill and the two from The Left, some MPs from the conservative Polish People’s Party (PSL), which forms half of the Third Way along with Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), opposed them.

As expected, the bills were opposed by MPs from PiS – which is now the main opposition party – and the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja). However, four of PiS’s 189 MPs voted for the Third Way’s bill to proceed while 21 abstained from voting (including PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński).

All four bills now pass to a special parliamentary commission established to consider them. Its 27 seats are distributed among parliamentary groups based on their size, with 11 for PiS, nine for KO, two for PSL, two for Poland 2050, two for The Left, and one for Confederation.

Once they emerge from committee, the bills still face a number of hurdles – some seemingly insurmountable – before they can become law. Despite most members of the Third Way allowing the abortion-on-demand bills to proceed today, it remains possible they will oppose them in a final vote.

The Left, likewise, allowed Third Way’s bill to proceed today but may oppose it in a final vote, arguing that only full liberalisation of the law is acceptable. Without either The Left or Third Way, the ruling coalition does not have a parliamentary majority.

Should any bill be approved by the Sejm, it passes to the upper-house Senate, where the government has an even larger majority and which can, in any case, only temporarily delay legislation rather than blocking it.

However, after being passed by parliament, bills must be signed into law by President Andrzej Duda, a conservative ally of PiS who has repeatedly expressed his support for a tough abortion law.

Ahead of today’s vote, Duda’s deputy chief of staff Piotr Ćwik told broadcaster wPolsce that “the president’s position is clear: he is pro-life”.

As well as being able to veto bills, Duda can also pass them to the TK for assessment. MPs can also ask the tribunal to assess the constitutionality of laws.

The TK remains filled with judges nominated by PiS and appointed by Duda, including those who previously issued the ruling introducing the current abortion ban. Any new abortion law could be declared unconstitutional by them.

However, the current government notes that three of the TK’s judges as well as its current chief justice hold their positions illegitimately, and it has argued that many of the body’s rulings – including its previous one on abortion – are invalid.

A new Ipsos poll published today by OKO.press and TOK FM, two liberal news outlets, indicates how divided Poles themselves are on the issue of abortion.

Asked what MPs should decide, 35% of respondents wanted them to allow abortion on demand, 21% favoured a return to the pre-2021 law and 14% preferred to maintain the current law.

A further 23% said the issue should be decided in a referendum, an idea favoured by the leaders of the Third Way but strongly opposed by The Left, which argues that abortion is a human right that should not be put to a public vote.

Meanwhile, before today’s votes, the head of Poland’s influential Catholic church, Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda, issued an appeal for the faithful to “make this Sunday a day of special prayer in defence of conceived life at all churches in Poland, at every holy mass”.

The Catholic church strongly supported the introduction of the current near-total ban. Last year, Wojda’s predecessor as head of the episcopate, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, warned that MPs who vote to allow abortion are “committing a grave sin and thus cannot receive holy communion”.

In January this year, Gądecki declared that “one must never comply with laws that allow the direct murder of innocent human beings” even if they are passed by a parliamentary majority.

Many supporters of liberalising the abortion law, including Tusk and Sejm speaker Szymon Hołownia, who is the leader of Poland 2050, are practising Catholics.


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Main image credit: Adam Stepien / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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