Politicians in Poland have voted to move forward with draft legislation aimed at lifting the country’s near-total ban on abortion, in what campaigners describe as a crucial first step towards relaxing some of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.
MPs in the Polish parliament voted to send four bills on abortion for further examination by a parliamentary committee, including two that propose legalizing abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy.
Friday’s long-awaited vote followed a six-hour debate on Thursday that exposed deep divisions in Donald Tusk’s governing coalition over access to abortion.
Reactions to the vote were swift. “This is a historic moment,” said Kamila Ferenc of the Federation for Women and Family Planning. “For the first time since 1996, projects liberalizing and decriminalizing abortion have been submitted for a second reading in the parliamentary committee.”
Her organization had long worked toward this outcome by meeting with lawmakers, educating them and speaking out about the need to change the law, she said. But Friday’s vote was just the beginning of what was likely to be a long legislative process, she added. “There is still a lot of work to be done in the future.”
The sentiment was echoed by Marta Lempart, the founder of the All-Poland Women’s Strike, a rights movement that has led the nationwide mass protests against the country’s abortion laws. “It will take time, but that’s fine,” she said.
“We look forward to the start of solid, concrete and substantive work on the legalization laws, work that takes into account the current reality of abortion, including the work of abortion activists in Poland.”
Amnesty International described the vote as an “important step towards ending Poland’s cruel and draconian restrictions” on abortion. As the bills develop, the organization’s Miko Czerwiński said in a statement that it “It is crucial that politicians listen to the voices of civil society and the people directly affected by the near-total ban on abortion” to bring the country’s laws into line with international human rights standards.
The youth-led WSCHÓD initiative highlighted the fact that a bill aimed at decriminalizing abortion assistance was among the bills that made it to the ballot. “It is a chance that the state will stop persecuting partners, activists, mothers and sisters of people who need abortion,” the organization’s Wiktoria Jędroszkowiak said in a statement. The hope was that the legislation could be approved by parliament in June, as only one line from the criminal code needs to be deleted, Jędroszkowiak added. “No one should be discouraged from helping those in need.”
Several lawmakers in the country were among those celebrating the outcome. “Today is a very happy day for Polish women!” Małgorzata Tracz of the Greens said on social mediawhile Krystyna Szumilas of the Civic Coalition of Tusk described the vote as a “step towards ensuring women’s safety”.
Poland, which long had some of the EU’s strictest abortion laws, further restricted women’s rights under the previous right-wing populist government and a 2020 constitutional ruling that banned abortion in cases of fetal abnormalities.
The crackdown was linked to the deaths of at least six women, as some doctors prioritize saving fetuses — either for ideological reasons or in an effort to avoid legal consequences — in what Human Rights Watch last year described as a “climate of fear that has increased risks for women and girls”.
Ahead of the vote, members of the country’s coalition government, which also includes Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition, the Left and the conservative Third Way, agreed on the need to reverse the 2020 ruling.
But there was little consensus on how it should be done. The Left and Tusk party supported the legalization of abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy, while the Left reinforced this call with another bill aimed at decriminalizing abortion assistance. However, the Third Way had pushed for a return to the harsh 1993 laws passed between political leaders and the Catholic Church, while expressing support for a referendum on the issue.
Many campaigners had rejected the idea of a referendum, citing opinion polls already suggesting majority support for change and arguing that the format could easily fall prey to manipulation and disinformation campaigns.
On Friday, Third Way politician and Speaker of the Polish Parliament Szymon Hołownia said that while his party continued to support the idea of a referendum, it had supported all four bills. “We did this out of respect for democracy and concern for the sustainability of the coalition,” he further wrote social media. “Now we place the fate of these bills in the hands of the committee members.”
Even if the legislation to liberalize abortion is approved by parliament, it remains uncertain whether the president, Andrzej Duda, who is aligned with the right-wing former government, will sign the legislation.
Duda, whose second and final term runs until the summer of 2025, has long hinted where his loyalties lie; last month, he used his veto to kill legislation that would have provided prescription-free emergency contraception to girls and women 15 and older.
The vote in Poland took place a day after the European Parliament adopted a resolution, seen as symbolic, urging member states to “fully decriminalize” and “remove and combat obstacles to safe and legal abortion.” . In adopting the resolution, MEPs singled out Poland and Malta and called on them to lift bans and restrictions on abortion.