Europe live: Poland considers loosening near total ban on abortion | Europe
Polish MPs consider four proposals on easing strict abortion rules
Ashifa Kassam
Poland’s parliament this week began a long-awaited debate on loosening the country’s near total ban on abortion, in what campaigners have described as a crucial test of the country’s new government.
More than three years after hundreds of thousands of people poured on to the streets wielding placards that read “the revolution has a uterus” and “my body, my choice”, MPs are considering four proposals.
Two of the bills are aimed at legalising abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy and another is focused on decriminalisation. The fourth, introduced by the conservative Third Way alliance, seeks a return to the strict 1993 laws hammered out between political leaders and the Catholic church, which were tightened in 2020.
Today, MPs will vote on whether to send the bills to a special commission for further study.
Poland’s Federation for Women and Family Planning described the debate as a “massive test” of how MPs saw women’s rights.
“Women elected this government and our demands are clear – we want legal, safe and accessible abortion,” the organisation wrote on social media. “This week we will find out who was worthy of our vote and who we will not trust again.”
Read the full story here.
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In a statement yesterday, the archbishop Tadeusz Wojda, president of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, said:
I urgently ask all people of good will to care for the lives of unborn children and their mothers, to oppose the culture of exclusion, which deprives the most defenceless and weak people of their fundamental right – the right to life.
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’Access to abortion is an undisputed European standard,’ Biedroń says
Robert Biedroń, a member of the European parliament from Poland’s New Left party, said that the country must become “more European” on abortion rights.
“Yesterday, the European Parliament has once again taken a clear position: the right to abortion is a human right,” he said in an emailed statement.
“Access to abortion is an undisputed European standard and it is high time for Poland to become more European in this respect as well,” he added.
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In a resolution approved yesterday, the European parliament called on Warsaw to change its abortion policies.
The parliament “urges the Member States to fully decriminalise abortion in line with the 2022 WHO guidelines, and to remove and combat obstacles to safe and legal abortion,” the MEPs said.
They also called “on Poland and Malta to repeal their laws and other measures concerning bans and restrictions on abortion” and urged “the Polish authorities to prioritise legislative efforts to ensure full access to safe and legal abortion as soon as possible.”
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’Gatekeepers’: MEP criticises politicians for 'business as usual’ on women’s rights
Sylwia Spurek, an independent member of the European parliament from Poland who serves as vice-chair of the parliament’s committee on women’s rights and gender equality, told the Guardian ahead of today’s votes that some groups want to continue with “business as usual” on women’s rights.
“The debate of draft laws concerning abortion in Polish Sejm shows that politicians, men and women not only from right wing parties but also from centre parties still want to play a role of gatekeepers of women’s rights,” Spurek said in an email.
“They still want to keep business as usual as regard to the women’s rights and control decisions that should be women’s own decisions,” she said.
Spurek added:
Some of them probably are afraid of the Church but many of them just don’t want to let women make their own choices. There is a huge gap between the positions and opinions they present and the positions of NGOs and groups like Abortion without Borders even in the language they use.
The fear of changing the status quo is common in centre parties in the European parliament, too – look how many European People’s party MEPs were afraid and didn’t take part in yesterday voting concerning the inclusion of the right to abortion in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
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Updated at 07.06 EDT
Polish MPs consider four proposals on easing strict abortion rules
Ashifa Kassam
Poland’s parliament this week began a long-awaited debate on loosening the country’s near total ban on abortion, in what campaigners have described as a crucial test of the country’s new government.
More than three years after hundreds of thousands of people poured on to the streets wielding placards that read “the revolution has a uterus” and “my body, my choice”, MPs are considering four proposals.
Two of the bills are aimed at legalising abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy and another is focused on decriminalisation. The fourth, introduced by the conservative Third Way alliance, seeks a return to the strict 1993 laws hammered out between political leaders and the Catholic church, which were tightened in 2020.
Today, MPs will vote on whether to send the bills to a special commission for further study.
Poland’s Federation for Women and Family Planning described the debate as a “massive test” of how MPs saw women’s rights.
“Women elected this government and our demands are clear – we want legal, safe and accessible abortion,” the organisation wrote on social media. “This week we will find out who was worthy of our vote and who we will not trust again.”
Read the full story here.
Share
Welcome to the blog
Good afternoon and welcome back to the Europe blog.
Today we will be looking at the latest in Poland’s long-running debate on abortion rules.
Stay tuned and send comments to [email protected].
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What do Poles think?
In an Ipsos survey conducted for OKO.press and TOK FM, 35% of respondents said MPs should vote on the right to legal abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy.
23% were in favour of a referendum, and 21% wanted a return to older rules.
14% supported keeping the current rules.
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