The chairwoman of the Left Club, Anna Maria Żukowska, said she would meet with the leader of Poland 2050, Szymon Hołownia, on Tuesday about resubmitting the draft amendment to the law on decriminalization of abortion assistance. According to KO club spokesperson Dorota Łoboda, KO MPs will sign the left-wing project.
In mid-July, the Sejm failed to adopt the amendment to the Criminal Code; the project, submitted by the left, was intended to decriminalize assisted abortion and termination of pregnancy with the consent of the pregnant woman up to the twelfth week of pregnancy.
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Links will resubmit the project
Żukowska told PAP on Monday evening that the left will resubmit the project, but no decision has yet been made whether it will do so together with MPs from the Civic Coalition and Poland 2050 or independently.
We are waiting for the decisions of the other two clubs that could sign it
– she emphasized.
The Left Club president said that there was a meeting on this issue with a representative of KO on Monday morning. She also said that she would meet with the Speaker of the Sejm, Poland 2050 leader Szymon Hołownia, on Tuesday on this issue.
PAP asked KO club spokeswoman Dorota Łoboda whether KO club MPs will sign the left-wing project. The MP confirmed.
It was decided that we would sign it as the Citizens’ Coalition
– she said.
The draft amendment to the Criminal Code was one of four parliamentary bills sent to the Extraordinary Committee for Considering Bills on the Right to Termination of Pregnancy after the April session of the Sejm. The committee members were the first to deal with it.
At the end of June, the commission – after listening to experts and the public – issued a positive opinion on the project. It provided for changes that mainly consisted of the decriminalization of assisted abortion and termination of pregnancy with the consent of the pregnant woman up to the twelfth week of pregnancy.
Currently, Article 152 applies. The Criminal Code states that “anyone who, with the consent of the woman, terminates her pregnancy, contrary to the provisions of the law, shall be liable to a prison sentence of up to three years.” The law also provides for the same penalty for assisting a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy contrary to the provisions of the law, or for persuading her to have an abortion. The authors of the bill wanted to change this regulation, because they assumed that, since terminating one’s own pregnancy is not a criminal offence, assisting with abortion should not be made a criminal offence either. Therefore, these two paragraphs were withdrawn in the draft amendment.
The draft amendments were accepted by Żukowska, who – as she said – decided on them after listening to experts. The result of these changes was the provision that anyone who, with the woman’s consent, terminates her pregnancy, except in the cases specified in the Act on Family Planning, Protection of the Human Fetus and Conditions for the Admissibility of Termination of Pregnancy, if more than twelve weeks have passed since the beginning of the pregnancy, shall be punished with restriction of liberty or imprisonment for a term of up to five years.
Change of the project
With regard to termination of pregnancy after the 12th week of its duration, an amendment has been added to the project, which reads:
A doctor, nurse or midwife does not commit a criminal offence if the termination of pregnancy results from the use of a medical procedure necessary to avoid a danger to the health or life of the pregnant woman or if prenatal examination or other medical indications indicate a high probability of serious and irreversible defects of the foetus or of an incurable disease threatening its life.
Another amendment provided that a physician, nurse or midwife shall not commit an offence if bodily injury or impairment of the health of the conceived child results from the use of a medical procedure necessary to avert a danger to the health or life of the pregnant woman or the conceived child.
215 MPs voted in favor of the adoption of the bill, 218 MPs voted against it and 2 MPs abstained. Of the 29 PSL-TD MPs who voted, only four were in favor of adopting the bill: Agnieszka Kłopotek, Jolanta Zieba-Gzik, Urszula Pasławska and Magdalena Sroka. There were 154 KO MPs, 30 Polish 2050 MPs and 26 left-wing MPs “in favor”. None of the MPs from Civic Coalition, Poland 2050 or the Left Club voted against it.
gah/PAP
Source: wPolityce
Emma Matthew is a political analyst for “Social Bites”. With a keen understanding of the inner workings of government and a passion for politics, she provides insightful and informative coverage of the latest political developments.