Parliament rejects bill to soften Poland’s abortion law, the closest sign of a rift in the ruling coalition

Parliament has rejected a bill that would have softened Poland’s strict abortion rules. While the move was supported by the vast majority of the ruling coalition, it was defeated due to the most conservative part of the ruling camp joining the opposition to vote against it.

This law would have decriminalized the business of helping a woman get an illegal abortion up to the twelfth generation of her pregnancy. Under the flow law, any person can be jailed for up to 3 years for doing this.

It was proposed by the extreme generation of Levica (The Left), which is part of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition. Tusk himself had announced a day earlier that his centrist Civic Platform (PO), the coalition’s largest member, would vote normally.

On the other hand, the majority caucus of the Polish Public Party (PSL), which is essentially the most conservative part of the government, voted against the bill today.

The PSL’s 24 votes, mixed with the national-conservative Legislation and Justice (PiS) party’s 175, the far-right Confederation’s (Konfederacja) 17 and the right-wing Kukiz’15’s two votes – all three of which are opposition parties – are considered to have passed the bill. There were 218 MPs against.

There have been only 215 MPs in total, of which 154 from KO, 30 from the centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), other members of the ruling coalition, 26 from the Left, 4 from PSL, and one separatist.

Earlier this year, President Andrzej Duda, a conservative PiS ally, announced he would veto the bill even if it passed parliament.

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The results of the vote were warmly welcomed by the PiS benches. “Life and the Constitution won,” declared PiS MP Bartlomiej Wróblewski.

“The most despicable attempt to violate the Constitution since 1989, to deny children legal protection before birth, was defeated in the Sejm,” he said.

The Left’s Anna-Maria Zhukowska, who first proposed the bill, criticized her coalition partners for its failure. He said three PO MPs and two Poland 2050 MPs had abstained from the vote. If he had supported the bill, the bill would have been passed.

“Oops, it seems there is a problem between Donald Tusk and the coalition,” wrote PiS spokesman Rafael Bochenek. “He promised and wanted to decriminalize criminal activities, but fortunately the nation still has the spirit.”

The recent bill was the first of four abortion-related regulations that received preliminary support by the Sejm in April. Alternative 3, which is still being discussed by a specially created parliamentary committee, would end the almost complete abortion cancellation provided for under PiS in 2021.

At the same time, this week may also be full of confusion regarding expenses. Two of them – proposed by KO and The Left – would introduce abortion on request, a point the PSL is opposed to.

The option proposed by PSL and Poland 2050 would re-introduce the possibility of terminal pregnancy in case of catastrophic birth defects, which was stopped in 2021. More recently, abortion in Poland is only possible if the pregnancy threatens the mother’s date or fitness or if it is affected by legal business such as rape or incest.

There is particular doubt as to whether the left would support that final bill, as they argue that this type of “compromise” does not make much progress in girls’ protective reproductive rights.

Meanwhile, any bill passed by Parliament faces a possible veto by Duda – whose tenure and final term expires during the next term – and could also be overturned. The Constitutional Court, which offered the flow almost complete abortion cancellations and stacking the rest with PiS-appointed judges.

Primary Symbol Credit Score: Sławomir Kaminski / Agency Wyborcza.pl