The Sejm did not pass an amendment to the Penal Code that would eliminate penalties for assisting in performing an abortion and would exclude the criminality of terminating pregnancy with the woman’s consent in the event of a severe, irreversible impairment or incurable disease of the fetus. The bill was defeated by three votes.
435 MPs took part in the Friday (12 July) vote, The vote for the bill was 215, once morest – 218, and two people abstained. – The Sejm did not pass the act amending the Penal Code – stated the Speaker of the Sejm Szymon Hołownia.
At the end of June, the Sejm’s Special Committee for Considering Draft Laws on the Right to Terminate Pregnancy adopted this bill. Earlier, the committee’s chairwoman, Dorota Łoboda from KO, said that the committee would start with it, because it is a minimum plan – a rescue bill.
Żukowska: optimal solution, Duda: killing people
On Thursday, during the Sejm session, the co-author of the bill, MP Anna Maria Żukowska (Left), presented the committee’s report on the matter. – This is the most optimal solution at the moment, the most socially expected and consistent in terms of logic and law – she argued.
Earlier, the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, announced that he would not sign a law decriminalizing abortion. “For me, abortion is killing people. For me, it is, unfortunately, depriving people of life,” he said in a television interview.
MP Anna-Maria Żukowska announced on social media following the vote: – The Left is submitting a bill to decriminalize assistance in abortion once more. We are not giving up! We will fight until the end. Until the hell of women in Poland ends – she wrote.
The Prime Minister announces that heads will roll
It is known that 5 MPs from the government coalition did not take part in the vote, three from the Civic Coalition: Roman Giertych, Krzysztof Grabczuk and Waldemar Sługocki and Krzysztof Grabczuk, and two from Poland 2050: Agnieszka Buczyńska and Paweł Zalewski. The head of the Civic Coalition Club, Zbigniew Konwiński, requested the leader of this formation, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, to punish the MPs, and the Prime Minister announced that consequences would be drawn. – This was not an ordinary vote. MP Grabczuk in hospital – he is justified. MPs Giertych and Sługocki will be suspended from the parliamentary club and stripped of their functions (deputy chairman of the club and deputy minister) – the Prime Minister wrote on the social networking site.
This was not an ordinary vote. MP Grabczuk in hospital – he is excused. MPs Giertych and Sługocki will be suspended from the parliamentary club and stripped of their functions (deputy chairman of the club and deputy minister).
— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) July 12, 2024
What projects regarding abortion are in the Sejm?
The Sejm is still working on three bills liberalizing abortion law:
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on safe termination of pregnancy (Left project),
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on amending the Act on family planning, protection of the human fetus and the conditions for the admissibility of termination of pregnancy (Third Way project),
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on conscious parenting (project of the Civic Coalition).
The draft amendment to the Penal Code, authored by the Left, is one of four projects concerning abortion submitted in this term of the Sejm. Each grouping prepared its own proposal, and following the first reading they were referred to a special committee for work. A public hearing on the matter was held earlier.
The main goal of the amendment to the Penal Code rejected by the Parliament was the partial depenalization and decriminalization of acts related to the termination of pregnancy: complete exclusion of the crime of terminating pregnancy up to its 12th week with the woman’s consent and exclusion of the criminality of terminating pregnancy with the woman’s consent in the event of severe, irreversible defects or an incurable disease of the fetus.
The proposed changes also provided for the derogation of the provision 152 paragraph 2, which currently provides for the criminalization of non-perpetratory forms of aiding and abetting. Removing these provisions would allow for the protection of family members and loved ones of women who try to independently decide to terminate their pregnancy.
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