Protesters march over plans to ease Poland’s abortion rules

THOUSANDS of people marched on the streets of Warsaw yesterday to protest against recent steps by the new government to liberalise abortion laws.

Poland is predominantly Roman Catholic with some of the strictest laws around abortion in Europe.

On Friday, MPS voted to work on four new laws, two of which would propose legalising abortion through the 12th week of pregnancy in line with European norms. The move has caused outrage among religious and conservative groups in the country who say life should be preserved from conception until natural death.

Some protesters turned out in the capital pushing babies in prams while others held the national flag or posters representing a foetus in the womb.

Poland’s Catholic Church called for the event to be a day of prayer “in defence of conceived life” and supported the march, organised by an anti-abortion movement.

“In the face of promotion of abortion in recent months, the march will be a rare occasion to show our support for the protection of human life from conception to natural death,” a federation of anti-abortion movements said in a statement before the demonstration.

They were referring to an ongoing public debate surrounding the steps that the prime minister Donald Tusk is taking to relax the strict law brought in by his conservative predecessor.

Poland’s parliament, which is dominated by the liberal and pro-european Union ruling coalition, voted to approve further detailed work on four proposals to lift the near-ban on abortions.

The legislation, which could take weeks or even months to progress through parliament, is expected to be eventually rejected by Andrzej Duda, the conservative president, whose term in office runs for another year.

Last month he vetoed a draft law that would have made the morning-after pill available over the counter to girls as young as 15.

A nation of about 38million, Poland is seeking ways to boost the birth rate, which is currently at 1.2 children per woman – among the lowest in the EU. Its society is ageing and shrinking, facts that the previous Right-wing government used for toughening the abortion laws. Currently, terminations are only allowed in cases of rape and incest or if the woman’s life or health is at risk.

According to the health ministry, 161 abortions were performed in Polish hospitals in 2022. However, abortion advocates estimate that about 120,000 women in Poland have terminations each year, mostly by secretly obtaining pills from abroad.

Women attempting to end pregnancies themselves are not penalised, but anyone assisting them can face up to three years in prison.

Reproductive rights advocates say the result is that doctors turn women away, even in permitted cases, through fear of falling foul of the law.

‘The march will be a rare occasion to show our support for the protection of human life’