Polish MPs reject easing restrictive abortion laws

Polish MPs on Friday rejected a bill that would have decriminalized the act of facilitating abortions in a blow for reproductive rights and the country's new liberal government.

The draft law, seen as a precursor to easing traditionally Catholic Poland's almost total ban on abortions, was rejected by 218 MPs against and 215 in favour.

The bill would have helped, for example, campaigners who provide women wanting to terminate their pregnancies with pills obtained in other countries for medical abortions.

The bill was the first and most conservative of four draft texts to liberalise abortion access in Poland put forward by members of the ruling pro-EU coalition.

Poland currently has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe and remains deeply divided on the issue.

The alliance of pro-EU parties came to power in October promising to legalize abortion, which is currently only permitted if the pregnancy is the result of sexual assault or incest, or if it poses a direct threat to the life or health of the mother.

The text submitted to the vote on Friday was rejected by representatives from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party and the far-right Konfederacja, which are two major opposition groups.

Some deputies of the PSL (Christian Democrats), members of the ruling coalition, also voted against it.

The three other bills, still being debated in parliamentary committees, directly propose easing access to abortion, each to a different extent.

This week, President Andrzej Duda, a close ally of the PiS, warned that he would veto all the bills even if they were passed.

 'Women's hell continues' 

 Krzysztof Bosak, leader of the far-right Konfederacja party, welcomed the rejection.

"Bravo! The abortion project of left-wing fanatics has been rejected by the Sejm... There will be no exemption of the abortion lobby from legal responsibility for their deadly activities," Bosak wrote on X.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based NGO, said in a statement: "Laws that criminalize abortion and threaten those who provide women with care and assistance with criminal prosecution and imprisonment endanger women's health and lives and violate human rights".

"Polish lawmakers missed a critical opportunity to alleviate the immense suffering endured by thousands of women and girls in Poland," Leah Hoctor, vice president of the organisation, said in the message.

Klaudia Jachira, a member of the ruling Civic Coalition who voted in favour of decriminalization, noted bitterly that "women's hell continues" in Poland.

According to a recent Ipsos poll, 35 percent of Poles support abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy.

A restoration of the right to terminate a pregnancy in the event of severe foetal deformities, abolished by the previous government, was supported by 21 percent.

For 14 percent of those surveyed, the current state of the legislation is satisfactory.

More than a quarter of Poles support a national referendum on abortion.