towards a relaxation of harsh abortion laws?

3 mins

The big question that arises Poland At the end of this first day of very lively debates is whether the texts presented on Thursday will be able to obtain enough support for their legislative journey to continue. Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition presented its bill to legalizeabortion until the 12th week of pregnancy. Three other similar proposals from its allies were submitted for debate.

But some parties oppose the relaxation of the law. First of all, the ultraconservative Law and Justice party, which ruled the country for the last eight years before having to give way to the pro-European coalition at the end of last year. Le Pis introduced a near-total ban on voluntary termination of pregnancy in 2021, which sparked massive protest rallies.

Another opponent of abortion, the ally of PiS, sovereign Poland. One of its deputies broadcast this April 11 from the platform of the Sejm, by loudspeaker, the sounds of the beating of a fetal heart, while inviting this Sunday, April 14 to the marches of life, organized by the Catholic Church in several cities, including Warsaw.

Read alsoAbortion rights: “Welcome to women’s hell” in Poland

A test for the strength of the coalition

And it is not just the opposition that opposes this liberalization. Within the ruling coalition, deputies from the conservative Peasant Party expressed their reservations. Some have announced that they will not support the proposed legislative development. The other ally of Donald Tusk’s party, Polska 2050, led by Diet President Szymon Hołownia, is calling for a referendum, which provokes an outcry among the defenders of the text.

For political scientist Renata Mienkowska, from the University of Warsaw, all this illustrates a gap between the society which voted for change in the last legislative elections and the politicians: “ Poland is an extremely conservative country. People change, but the Polish political scene, which remains dominated by men, is much more conservative than the rest of society. So we have this problem of divergence between what the parties can offer and what society wants. Women and young people, in particular, really want the liberalization of abortion, but you know, we really have a lot of older politicians, mainly men, and this is also the case within the ruling coalition. They grew up with Solidarnosc which was very close to the Catholic Church, etc. and it is still a legacy of all this. »

All these turmoil and delays cause anger and frustration among young people and feminist associations who defend the right to abortion. They mobilized strongly during the legislative elections last October, the pro-EU alliance having notably promised to restore reproductive rights. This is therefore a test of the strength of the coalition. Especially since the Pis remains in ambush, as the first round of local elections last Sunday showed: if the coalition has remained in the majority and is on the verge of wresting three other regions from the nationalists, it is indeed the conservative party which won the most votes. And in the area of ​​abortion, he can also count on the president Andrzej Dudaa fervent Catholic, who could veto if the Diet produced a law.