Poland's Parliament approve pro-life initiative for total ban on abortion: Extraordinary Committee will now consider it

Last Wednesday I BLOGGED on a citizens initiative in Poland asking the Government to commence a procedure that would lead to a total ban on abortion. That vote took place today and I can report that the initiative was approved

The following report was issued by Polish Radio this afternoon see link to report

A citizens’ initiative to completely outlaw abortion in Poland has been passed by parliament, and will land on the desk of an extraordinary committee to look into the petition.

The bill was voted on in parliament today by 416 members of the Sejm lower house. 151 parliamentarians voted for the outright rejection of the citizens’ initiative, while 254 approved the initiative’s application. Eleven MPs abstained.

Three parties in parliament, Law and Justice, its splinter group Poland Comes First, as well as junior coalition partners the Polish Peasants’ Party voted for the initiative, while the Democratic Left Alliance voted against the initiative.

The extraordinary committee now has until 1 September to file its findings into the proposed bill, which assumes the total abolition of abortion in Poland. Currently, the country has one of the strictest anti-termination laws in the EU.

The petition has so far been signed by around 600,000 people. The authors of the imitative have said that the Polish Constitution protects life in the pre-natal phase, and as such any law allowing abortion would go against the document.

The current abortion law has been in place since 1993, and allows for termination in only a number of cases: when the pregnancy constitutes a health threat for the mother, when medical certification proves that the foetus is terminally damaged, and pregnancy as a result of rape.

Tragically, although the Polish law on abortion is considerably more restrictive than the vast majority of other European countries, it does allow abortion of disabled babies, in the case of rape and when the pregnancy constitutes a health threat.