The debate about the right to terminate a pregnancy can officially continue in the Polish Sejm. Left-wing MP Anna-Maria Żukowska spoke of a historic day. On Friday afternoon, the majority decided not to reject four bills on abortion. This means that all four templates can go to the next reading. This is a small step, but also the first in decades on the way to possible liberalization.
This small step is thanks to the years-long struggle of many women. And actually the PiS too. By radicalizing an already tough law, the party has brought tens of thousands of angry women onto the streets. And Donald Tusk’s conservative Civic Platform realized that it couldn’t ignore this issue if it wanted to reach female and younger voters. Some of the demonstrators are now members of parliament themselves. Like Dorota Łoboda, who said in the Sejm on Friday, a first step has now been taken: “for the rights, health and safety of women”.
By arguing that it is about women’s health care, the Tusk party has tried to take the issue out of the ideological corner. It is now women like Łoboda who are ensuring that Tusk fulfills his election promise. The Citizens Platform presented a draft solution to the deadline in the Sejm. This would make abortions legal until the end of the twelfth week of pregnancy.
In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, abortions are permitted until the end of the twelfth week
Abortion has been banned in Poland since 1993. Unlike the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which retained their liberal socialist-era legislation and where abortion is permitted up to the end of the twelfth week, young, democratic Poland changed the law from the People’s Republic era. Exceptions to the ban on abortion applied in the case of rape or incest, as well as if the mother’s life was in danger or if the fetus was damaged. PiS deleted this last reason in 2020.
The strict PiS law threatened the lives of women and several pregnant women died. Only last June, a few months before the parliamentary elections, there were renewed protests across the country. At the end of May, a pregnant woman died in a hospital because she was refused help. The woman had lost amniotic fluid in the fifth month and the fetus had died – because it was not removed, the woman succumbed to sepsis. This is what her husband reported to several media outlets at the time. There had been similar cases before. Apparently intimidated by the law, the doctors hesitated to intervene for too long.
Already after the change in the law in 2020, there were demonstrations across the country. The police used batons and tear gas against the women who allegedly violated Corona requirements. The ban on abortion was further tightened by a conscience clause that allows doctors to fundamentally refuse to perform an abortion. As a result, almost no abortions are carried out in Polish clinics and doctor’s offices.
Polish law also poses problems for many Ukrainian women
The law also requires victims of violence to go through investigations and wait for a paper from a public prosecutor – in case of doubt, the time for a permitted and safe termination has then expired. This became a problem, especially for many women from Ukraine, millions of whom fled to Poland after the start of the war.
In fact, abortions happen every day in Poland. Activists from the Aborcyjny Dream Team organization presented in front of the Sejm a bill on a huge receipt for more than 49 million złoty – about 11.5 million euros. The Polish health system has saved that much money in 18 years because it refuses help to women. This is how the activists argue, whose work is based on donations.
Together with the international network Abortions without Borders, the Aborcyjny Dream Team helps women travel abroad to have an abortion there. Or they send abortion drugs to Polish women from abroad. In doing so, they circumvent the law that punishes those who assist in an abortion. The woman herself who takes such medication is not committing a crime.
A sign that the government coalition is working
Friday’s votes are also a success because the four coalition parties prove that they can work together. While the Civic Platform and the Left Party want legalization, the conservative Farmers’ Party PSL and the centrist Polska 2050 only want to return to the pre-1993 law. They jointly submitted a corresponding proposal to the Sejm. It currently has the best chance of passing smoothly; even PiS MPs are open to it. The Left presented two drafts dealing with decriminalization and safe methods of abortion. Apparently the four coalition partners at least agree that they want to at least continue to discuss all the proposals and possibly revise them.
But the street fighting will continue: several organizations in Warsaw have announced a march against abortion rights for Sunday.