Over 80% of Polish women aged under 40 oppose new abortion restrictions, finds poll

Among women in Poland aged 18 to 40, only 2% say they support the recent near-total ban on abortion, while 7% want a complete ban, according to a new poll. By contrast, the largest proportion (44%) want abortion to be available on demand.

Meanwhile, after much pressure to take a stance on this issue, Poland’s main opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), has today issued a new position on abortion. It favours not just returning to the previous status quo, but liberalising access to terminations.

In the new Kantar poll for Polityka – the first to look specifically at the women most directly affected by the abortion law – a plurality of 44% expressed the view that abortion should be available on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

A further 38% said that they support the status quo prior to the recent change, when pregnancies could be terminated in three cases: if they threatened the mother’s life or health, if they resulted from rape or incest, or if the foetus suffered from severe defects.

Only 2% said that they support the current situation, introduced by a Constitutional Tribunal ruling that banned the last of those three options (which made up almost all legal terminations in Poland). A further 7% want a complete ban on abortion and 9% did not express a position.

While 90% of respondents said that women carrying foetuses with fatal defects should be allowed an abortion, 67% agreed that the procedure should also be allowed if the foetus is diagnosed with Down syndrome (as it was before the recent ruling). Over a quarter (27%) said it should not be permitted for cases of Down syndrome.

Polling has consistently shown that, among the Polish population as a whole, a large majority oppose the anti-abortion ruling and support the mass protests that have emerged in opposition to it. However, most favour a return to the previous status quo rather than a liberalisation of access to abortion.

The new Kantar poll of women finds that the youngest respondents (aged 18 to 24) were the most strongly in favour liberalisation, with 57% supporting abortion on demand and 29% favouring a return to the previous status quo.

Likewise, 60% women in urban areas want abortion to be available on demand while 35% support a return to the status quo. In more rural areas, which are generally more conservative, the figures are 37% and 39% respectively.

Participants in the abortion protests have been disproportionately urban and young. A recent study by CBOS – a state-linked research agency – found that young Poles are now more likely to hold left-wing views than centrist or right-wing ones for the first time in Poland’s post-communist history.

Meanwhile, in the new Kantar poll, only 7% of the women surveyed said they believed that the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling was a decision it made independently. Exactly a quarter said it was due to pressure from the Catholic church, while 29% saw it as a result of an internal power struggle in the ruling camp.

Almost half (45%) said that the abortion issue would influence their decisions in future elections. Notably, among young women who identified themselves as supporters of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, almost half support either a return to the previous status quo (27%) or abortion on demand (20%).

PiS has supported the tightening of the abortion law. Its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, said that his party will “strive to ensure that even very difficult pregnancies, when the child is condemned to death, is severely deformed, will end in birth, so that the child can be christened, buried, given a name”.

Among young women who support the centrist Civic Coalition (which is led by PO), Kantar found that almost two thirds (64%) favour abortion being available on demand.

PO, which encompasses both socially liberal and more conservative wings, has been under pressure to take a clearer stance on abortion since the Constitutional Tribunal ruling was issued last October.

The party had previously been in favour of the pre-ruling status quo. However, its leader, Borys Budka, recently said there can now be “no return” to that so-called “compromise”. PO’s deputy leader, Rafał Trzaskowski, likewise said that the “pseudo-compromise has been buried by PiS”.

At a press conference today, the party set out its new position. “We want the three conditions [for abortion] that were in force under the previous law to continue to apply, but we will also give the possibility of terminating pregnancy up to the 12th week in exceptional circumstances,” said Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, who has been leading PO’s committee working on a new position.

The party says it wants abortions to be available up to the 12th week for women who have an “extremely difficult personal situation” and “after consultation with a psychologist and a doctor”, reports Onet.

In its package, PO also called for the state to guarantee sex education, free access to contraception and IVF, and prescription-free morning-after pills. PiS has opposed sex education, cut state funding for IVF, and made emergency contraceptives available only on prescription.

“We reject the radicalisms of the left and the right,” tweeted the head of PO’s parliamentary caucus. “We need a new social contract.”

However, media reports based on inside sources have suggested that there may be a rebellion from PO’s more conservative ranks over the new position of the leadership. Some are considering leaving the party completely, reports Wirtualna Polska.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Gazeta

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.