Polish MPs vote to end abortion

The Polish Parliament voted an amendment to the Constitution down that would have guaranteed the end of abortion practices in the country.

Polish deputies voted on 5 amendments, in total. One of them was proposed by the League of Polish Families which wanted to change the 38 paragraph of the Polish Constitution: “The Republic of Poland guarantees every man a legal protection from the moment of conception until the natural death.” Due to the lack of support from within the coalition partners the law could not become an act of Parliament. What failed was discipline and good will.

During the voting, the presidential law did not receive enough votes, as well. However, experts on the Constitution had claimed that the law was full of legal flaws and in practice would even jeopardise the current anti-abortion regulations. The problem was that the law could implicitly pave the way for the liberalisation of the status quo resulting in potential abortion on demand, what has already been attempted by the left twice.

Nearly one year ago the Polish Seym adopted a declaration calling for amending the Constitution to ban abortions. A great majority of deputies supported the motion. During the Friday voting 60% of deputies supported the League`s amendment. The initiative fell short of only a dozen votes.

Under the existing law a majority of at least 2/3 of votes in the presence of at least half of the statutory number of Deputies is needed to amend the Constitution.

The deputies from the Catholic League of Polish Families and some deep believing deputies from Law and Justice Party centred around the Speaker of the Seym Marek Jurek were the force that looked to implementing this change.

In spite of the defeat, the Polish deputies sent a strong signal to the European Union societies: Life of the unborn is worth fighting for. At the same time, the pro-life circles are not laying down their weapons.



Kamil Szczęch