The bill was approved by 233 lawmakers in Poland’s lower house of parliament, with 203 voting against and one abstaining.
The legislation, submitted by lawmakers from the centre-right Third Way group in February 2024, seeks to reverse the effects of the Constitutional Tribunal's October 22, 2020 ruling, which removed severe fetal abnormalities as a legal ground for abortion.
The measure would restore the possibility of terminating a pregnancy in cases of severe fetal abnormalities.
Separately, lawmakers on Tuesday backed a bill to partially decriminalise abortion with a woman's consent and decriminalise assistance in obtaining an abortion, including in cases of severe fetal abnormalities.
Both bills will now head to the Senate, the upper house, for review. They must be signed by President Karol Nawrocki to become law.
Nawrocki's top aide Zbigniew Bogucki told private broadcaster Polsat News on Tuesday that "it is not yet certain what the final text of the bill will be when it reaches the president's desk because there might still be some revisions."
He added that "once the bill reaches the president, he will respond to the proposal in a substantive and fact-based manner."
Bogucki said, however, that Nawrocki "declared his support for the protection of life from conception to natural death" during the presidential campaign.
"We have a very clear constitutional and legal framework regarding the protection of life. The president ran in the election explicitly stating his support for the protection of life, and he secured the backing of the majority of voters—and that has not changed, nor will it change,” Bogucki said.
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Source: IAR/PAP