Polish bill curtails right to abortion
WARSAW — The Polish parliament on January 7 approved a modified anti-abortion bill that permits the termination of pregnancies in certain circumstances, but ends the abortion-on-demand policy of the Communist era.
The lower house or Sejm approved the bill on a 213-171 vote with 29 abstentions following a four-year battle championed by the Christian National Alliance (ZCHN) party in heavily Catholic Poland.
It now goes to the Senate, where the party is expected to try to strip the bill of the more liberal amendments.
The ZCHN had sponsored a much tougher law that would permit abortions only when the mother's life was in immediate danger, and would impose prison terms of up to 10 years for aiding a woman in terminating a pregnancy.
The majority of the chamber refused to accept such stiff restrictions. Instead, the deputies adopted a series of amendments providing the mother cannot be punished for having an abortion, and permitting abortions when pregnancy is the result of a crime, or when prenatal tests show the foetus has major and irreversible defects.
In the case of illegal abortions, punishment can still range up to two years in prison.
The powerful Roman Catholic Church began to press for an end to the liberal 1956 abortion law even before the inauguration of the first postwar non-Communist government.
However, repeated surveys have shown a majority of Poles prefer to have the option of legally terminating a pregnancy in certain circumstances.
The government was divided on the bill. Prime minister Hanna Suchocka is personally opposed to abortions, as is President Lech Walesa. But health minister Marek Balicki warned that a strict law would drive pregnant women out of hospitals, where they would have the best care, to seek abortions elsewhere.
ZCHN admitted it lost the battle for several important articles in the bill, but spokesperson Ryszard Czarnecki stressed that its adoption was a "major step toward the legal protection of unborn life". He said the current legislation provides grounds for further changes in the next parliament.
The next battleground will be the Senate, probably on January 28, where there is more support for the stricter version of the bill.
The Polish abortion rate is among the highest in Europe, partly because contraceptives are scarce and expensive. The amended bill provides that contraceptives be made more widely available, and that schools provide sex education.
[From Inter Press Service/Pegasus.]