Polish lawmakers narrowly defeat effort to decriminalize abortion assistance

Protesters hold a placard depicting an unborn baby as they take part in the March of Life in Warsaw, on April 14, 2024. / Credit: Photo by WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Jul 15, 2024 / 18:00 pm (CNA).

Polish lawmakers narrowly voted to maintain the country’s strong pro-life laws by rejecting a bill that would have ended all criminal penalties for people who provide assistance to women who are obtaining illegal abortions.

Under current law, women do not face criminal penalties for seeking or receiving an illegal abortion. However, an abortionist who performs an illegal abortion and any person who assists the woman or the abortionist in the legal abortion could face up to three years in prison for their roles.

The proposed legislation would have eliminated those penalties. However, the Polish Sejm, which is the parliament’s lower chamber, voted 218-215 on July 12 to defeat the legislation and ensure the law stays intact. Two members of the parliament abstained from voting.

In Poland, abortion is illegal in most cases. There is no legal elective abortion in Poland, but it is legal up to the 12th week of pregnancy in cases of rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is at risk. The prohibition on most abortions applies to both surgical and chemical abortions.

Following the vote, the Polish Episcopal Conference posted a March 20 quote from Pope Francis on X, formerly known as Twitter, which affirms life.

“Let Poland be a land that protects life at every moment, from the moment it appears in the mother’s womb until its natural end,” Francis told his general audience on March 20. “Do not forget that no one is the master of life, either his own or that of others.”

Rafał Bochenek, a member of the Sejm in the conservative Law and Justice Party, praised the vote in a post on X and criticized Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and others for supporting the bill. 

“Donald Tusk and the coalition seem to have a problem,” Bochenek said. “They promised and wanted to decriminalize criminal activities, but fortunately there is still a spirit in the nation. …Abortion is always evil!”

Tusk leads the centrist Civic Platform Party. His party leads the Civic Coalition, which holds the most seats in the majority coalition in the parliament. The other two parts of the majority coalition are Third Way, which is a center-right group, and New Left, which is a social democratic group. This coalition holds about 54% of the seats in parliament.

Although Tusk campaigned on liberalizing Poland’s abortion laws, including voicing support for legislation to legalize elective abortion through 12 weeks of pregnancy, a handful of members within the Civic Coalition and Third Way joined with the minority conservative parties to block the decriminalization bill.

The failure to secure enough votes elicited frustration from the New Left, which campaigned strongly on expanding abortion within Poland and introduced the bill. 

Tomasz Trela, a member of the Sejm who is in the New Left, criticized the members of the majority coalition who broke away from their parties and opposed the decriminalization effort in a post on X. 

“Decriminalization of abortion care is gone,” Trela said. “The whole [Left] was there and we all voted for [the legislation], as the only club in the Sejm. There is one conclusion: more Left in the Sejm — more normality in Poland.”

The New Left has also introduced bills that would legalize elective abortion through the 12th week of pregnancy and Third Way introduced a bill that would expand legal abortion to cases in which the unborn child has a fetal abnormality.

It’s unclear whether any of these bills will have enough support to pass the Sejm.