Polish lawmakers reject proposal to ease abortion restrictions

WARSAW: Poland’s parliament rejected proposals to ease strict abortion restrictions, a year after tens of thousands of blackclad women flooded the streets to prevent the Catholic country from adopting harsher laws.

The Polish legislature, which is controlled by the right-wing Law and Justice ( PiS) party, also signalled a willingness to further tighten the legislation, which is already some of the most restrictive in Europe.

Lawmakers voted down one draft bill that would have liberalised the law while also sending for further consideration a separate proposal to prohibit the procedure for foetuses with deformities, which critics say would amount to a total abortion ban.

Current legislation, passed in 1993, bans all abortions except in cases of rape or incest, if the pregnancy poses a health risk to the mother or if the foetus is severely deformed.

There are around 1,000 legally performed abortions a year in the country of 38 million people, though women’s groups estimate that 100,000 to 150,000 procedures are performed illegally or abroad.

According to Kaja Godek, one of the initiators of the ‘ Zatrzymaj aborcje’ ( Stop Abortion) proposal, deformation of the foetus was the reason behind 96 percent of the legal abortions carried out in Poland in 2016.

It is thought the proposed ban on this type of procedure has a good chance of passing.

Over 100 protesters on both sides of the abortion divide rallied in front of parliament during the debate. — AFP