Poland's parliament voiced it support for liberalizing the country's near-total abortion ban after most lawmakers voted on Friday in favour of having four bills considered by a special committee.
Poland, a predominantly Catholic country, has some of the most restrictive abortion regulations in Europe, and these were tightened even further in 2020 by the Constitutional Court under the previous nationalist conservative PiS government.
Polish women may only have abortions if they become pregnant through rape or incest, or if their lives are at risk. Women may not have abortions in the case of severe foetal abnormalities, for example.
Lawmakers in new Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centre-left coalition are seeking to relax the law, though they are divided as to how far.
The draft bill brought by Tusk's liberal-conservative Civic Coalition party provides for abortions to be legal up to the 12th week of pregnancy. Left-wing alliance Lewica is calling for the same in its own bill. The alliance also is submitting another bill that calls for other decriminalization measures related to abortion.
Meanwhile the Christian-conservative Third Way party is calling for a return to a compromise solution in place until the Constitutional Court's judgement. That would mean legalizing abortions only if a woman becomes pregnant through a crime or if there is a risk to her or the foetus.
The special committee would try to find a common denominator for a bill that all parties could support. This is likely to be difficult and even if it proves possible, a further hurdle to liberalization would be that any law could be vetoed by President Andrzej Duda, who comes from the PiS.
