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Polish MPs reject bid to restrict abortion law

10.03.2023 01:00
Polish lawmakers have rejected a bill that would have restricted the country's abortion law by imposing prison terms on those aiding terminations, news outlets have reported.
The lower house of Polands parliament, the Sejm, in session in Warsaw on Tuesday, March 7, 2023.
The lower house of Poland's parliament, the Sejm, in session in Warsaw on Tuesday, March 7, 2023.Photo: PAP/Mateusz Marek

A total of 300 deputies in the Sejm, the lower house of Poland's parliament, voted to defeat the civic legislative proposal at an initial stage on Tuesday, while 99 supported it and 27 abstained, state news agency PAP reported.

The vote came after Poland’s governing conservatives said in December they opposed the new abortion proposal.

Rafał Bochenek, a spokesman for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which commands a majority in the house, told reporters at the time that adopting the proposal "could encourage the far left to call for abortion on demand.”  

The bill was submitted to parliament in late December by a group of activists led by anti-abortion campaigner Kaja Godek.

Godek, whose Life and Family Foundation collected the signatures needed to submit the bill to parliament, said the initiative was "a response to a system of abortion-related assistance that has grown in Poland in recent years.”

Called "Abortion is Murder," the bill would have banned "the public promotion of activities aiding the termination of pregnancies," according to the PAP news agency.

The measure would have also banned information campaigns about access to abortion in Poland and abroad, reporters were told.  

Meanwhile, those found guilty of urging a woman to have an abortion would have faced up to three years in prison, and “persuading a woman to terminate a pregnancy” would have carried a prison sentence of up to eight years, according to officials.

In December 2021, Polish lawmakers rejected a bill that would have outlawed abortion by defining it as homicide, according to reports at the time.

Under existing law, abortion is allowed in Poland only when the pregnancy endangers the life or health of the woman or if it is a result of "a forbidden act," such as rape or incest.

The country's abortion regulations were last modified after its Constitutional Tribunal in October 2020 ruled that abortion due to serious fetal defects and severe illnesses was unconstitutional.

The ruling prompted a wave of protests across the country.

(gs)

Source: IAR, PAP