Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday his government will propose legislation to liberalise a near-total abortion ban and ease restrictions on the morning-after pill, which, if adopted, would dramatically reverse the previous administration’s policies.
But both bills face an uphill battle in the parliament and it is unclear if they will garner enough support to pass. Even if they do, the laws could be vetoed by the conservative president allied with right-wing populists.
Poland saw a rollback of women’s reproductive rights during the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party’s eight-year rule, with access tightened to abortion as well as in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and emergency contraception.
A pro-European Union coalition took power from the PiS in an October election on pledges to liberalise abortion laws in a country where the issue has sparked mass protests.
“We are ready to submit a bill to the parliament in the coming hours on legal and safe abortion up to the 12th week,” Tusk told reporters.
Two of the three political groups in his coalition — the Left, and the Civic Coalition led by Tusk, a former European Council president — have abortion liberalisation in their programmes.
But the third coalition member, the centrist Third Way, has not officially expressed its views on the topic and its lawmakers are not certain to back the legislation.
There is no date for parliament to vote on both proposals, but women’s rights groups have called on the lawmakers to act on them swiftly.
“We realise that the legislative path to implementing the social demand for legal, safe, and free abortion is only just getting started,” Agnieszka Czerederecka from the Women’s Strike non-profit said in a statement.
She urged “reliable, bias-free and honest parliamentary work on these important projects”.
– ‘About time’ –
The move by Tusk’s government would make it four bills aiming to liberalise terminating pregnancies in the parliament following two proposals tabled by the Left party in November. The previous two bills have not advanced.
Legislation easing access to abortion would be a major rebuff of the last right-wing government’s policies.
Abortion in the majority-Catholic country is currently legal only if pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest, or threatens the life or health of the mother.
However tens of thousands of women terminate pregnancies at home — using banned abortion pills — or by going abroad, according to women’s rights groups.
Tusk earlier on Wednesday announced plans to also ease restrictions on the “morning-after” pill, which was made prescription-only by the previous government.
Tusk said the proposal that aims to provide over-the-counter access to the pill from the age of 15 will be sent to parliament.
“It’s about time,” Antonina Lewandowska from Federa women’s rights group told Polish news agency PAP, as she called the announcement “a first step in the very long marathon” to change the law.
“It’s not a revolutionary decision on a European scale, but merely meeting the standards and the absolute minimum,” she added.
With abortion assistance outlawed in Poland, activists and doctors who help women obtain the procedure risk jail.
In March 2023, activist Justyna Wydrzynska was found guilty of supplying a pregnant woman with abortion pills in the first such case. She was sentenced to community service.
