Abortion-rights demonstrators rallied across Poland on Thursday, two days after the lower house passed two limited reform bills that the Senate's draft agenda for its next sitting does not include.
The Senate is due to meet on Tuesday, Oct. 27. Its published draft agenda lists neither measure, and the agenda may still change. Under the Senate's guide, an act is deemed adopted in the Sejm's wording if the Senate takes no resolution within 30 days of receiving it. After parliamentary consideration, it goes to the president; publication is required before it can take effect.
The Federation for Women and Family Planning (FEDERA) called the protests for the sixth anniversary of the Constitutional Tribunal's Oct. 22, 2020, ruling against abortion on fetal-abnormality grounds. The judgment was published on Jan. 27, 2021. The Associated Press reported demonstrations in more than 20 Polish cities and towns, including hundreds of people outside parliament in Warsaw. Euronews put the number at 26 Polish cities plus London.
What the Sejm passed
The Sejm, Poland's lower house, voted on Oct. 20. The first bill would partially decriminalize assistance with abortion, including help with self-managed abortion. FEDERA says it would not decriminalize providing an abortion outside the circumstances the law allows. It passed 217 to 213, with three abstentions.
The second bill would restore the fetal-abnormality ground that lapsed after the Tribunal's ruling. It passed 233 to 203, with one abstention. EconoTimes reported on the Sejm votes and the veto risk the bills face. Reuters has reported that President Karol Nawrocki has signaled he would block liberalization of abortion law.
Demands beyond the bills
FEDERA says neither measure delivers its central demand: abortion on request through the 12th week of pregnancy. Euronews reported that protesters also called for wider access to emergency contraception and for action against anti-abortion demonstrations outside health facilities.
Zofia Marcinek of Abortion Dream Team told AP that the coalition's decision to pass the bills a year before the next parliamentary election amounted to "token gestures," not a serious attempt at reform. That is her interpretation, and the legislative record does not establish a motive.
Current law and legal exposure
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) says Polish law now allows abortion when a pregnancy endangers the woman's life or health, or when there are reasonable grounds to suspect it followed rape or incest. In M.L. v. Poland, the court said anyone who unlawfully ends a pregnancy or helps do so can face up to three years in prison. The pregnant woman herself is not criminally liable.
The assistance bill addresses that exposure for helpers. The fetal-abnormality bill would reopen a ground closed since 2021. The ECHR has said the 2020 ruling itself prompted protests across Poland.
The next concrete step is the Senate's Oct. 27 sitting, where the draft agenda currently leaves both bills off.
