1

The Sejm adopted a bill amending the Criminal Code (Sejm print no. 3202) and a bill amending the Family Planning Act (Sejm print no. 3203), both of which lower the constitutional standard of protection of the lives of unborn children in Poland.

2

The bill of the Left and the Civic Coalition (KO) decriminalizes abortion performed in violation of the statute, as well as assisting in it – even when this has led to the death of the woman or of a child capable of living outside the mother’s body.

3

The Third Way’s bill reinstates eugenic abortion in defiance of the judgment of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (CT), abolishes the requirement that abortions be performed in hospitals, and bases their admissibility solely on the woman’s statement.

4

Abortion is to be financed from public funds, including in private facilities, with priority access within 72 hours and free psychological support.

5

Only five votes were lacking to block the changes to the Criminal Code. The final fate of the laws depends on Polish President Karol Nawrocki, who can veto them or refer them to the CT.

 

October 20, 2026, is already being called “Black Tuesday.” On that day, the parliamentary majority in the Sejm passed two bills curtailing the legal protection of the lives of unborn children: a bill amending the Criminal Code (Sejm print no. 3202) and a bill amending the Act on Family Planning, Protection of the Human Fetus and the Conditions for the Admissibility of Termination of Pregnancy (Sejm print no. 3203). Each of these bills, taken separately, is unacceptable in the Polish legal system, as it lowers the standard of protection of life set by the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and by the settled case law of the Constitutional Tribunal (CT); taken together, however, they constitute a massive and direct attack on the lives of unborn children.

Decriminalization of abortion and of assisting in abortion

The basic premise of the bill submitted by the Left and the Civic Coalition (KO), Sejm print no. 3202, is the decriminalization of abortion performed in violation of the statute (namely the Act of January 7, 1993, on Family Planning, Protection of the Human Fetus and the Conditions for the Admissibility of Termination of Pregnancy, hereinafter: the Family Planning Act). In other words, a person who, for example, terminated a woman’s pregnancy somewhere other than a hospital (including a place that does not meet any sanitary requirements) or after the statutory time limit will face no risk of the criminal liability provided for in the Act of June 6, 1997 – the Criminal Code, as long as the grounds for this act were a danger to the mother’s health (the degree of danger being irrelevant – it may even be slight and indirect) or vaguely defined indications suggesting that the child is likely to be disabled. Nor will the perpetrator of such an illegal abortion be criminally liable in a situation where the child could already have been born and lived outside the mother’s body.

Furthermore, under the adopted bill, criminal liability is to be avoided by a person who assists in an illegal abortion, including one whose actions resulted in the death of the woman (current Article 154 § 1 of the Criminal Code), as well as by a person whose assistance caused the death of a conceived child developed enough to be born and live independently outside the mother’s body (current Article 152 § 3 of the Criminal Code).

Abortion for practically everyone, and free of charge!

The Third Way’s bill provides for an amendment to the Family Planning Act (Sejm print no. 3203) that complements the changes to the criminal law. Its flagship demand is the so-called return to the legal situation prior to the Constitutional Tribunal’s judgment of October 22, 2020 (ref. K 1/20), that is, the admissibility of eugenic abortion. There is no point in dwelling at length on the fact that such a return is impossible, because CT judgments are final and binding, or in pondering whether, this time, the bill’s sponsors were driven by ignorance or plain stupidity. In any case, when political populism is at play, MPs recognize no limits. As if that were not enough, the bill repeals the statutory requirement that abortions be performed in hospitals, which, on the one hand, means that women’s safety has been shamelessly relegated to the background. On the other hand, it reveals an undisguised nod by our representatives in parliament to private facilities (probably foreign ones as well) dispensing abortions left and right, which are already waiting “at the starting blocks” to enter a new market and multiply their wealth here at the cost of the deaths of unborn children.

Another idea in the bill in Sejm print no. 3203 is to lower the standards for verifying whether a pregnancy actually resulted from a prohibited act (e.g., rape) and whether there really are sufficiently serious medical grounds that could justify such a drastic and irreversible intervention. Under the bill, in both cases, information or a statement from the woman is to be a sufficient basis for killing an unborn child, which in practice introduces abortion on demand (no mechanisms are provided for verifying the truthfulness of the information given by a mother determined to get rid of an unwanted child). Finally, yet another “gem” of the bill in print no. 3203: abortion not only everywhere and for practically everyone, but also free of charge (!). That is to say, at the expense of taxpayers (those who pay health insurance contributions) – but from politicians’ perspective, that is probably the same as free. The bill provides that abortion is to be financed from public funds, and not only in hospitals, as has been the case so far, but also in the aforementioned private offices and clinics. In other words, we will all pay for the smiles of the ladies and gentlemen dispensing abortions, just as the ladies of AboTak – the illegal abortion “clinic” outside Poland’s parliament – currently do, albeit not with public money.

But that is not all. Since by now probably everyone is aware that having undergone an abortion wreaks havoc on a woman’s psyche, the bill’s authors have magnanimously proposed that such women be guaranteed priority access not only to the abortion itself (within 72 hours), but also to subsequent psychological support for a period of six months after the abortion (!). Of course, society will once again pay for all of this, since these services are to be both provided on a priority basis and free of charge.

The right could have blocked the bills, but did not want to

What is surprising, however, is not the content of the bills (nothing better could have been expected from their authors), but the fact that some representatives of parties that describe themselves as right-wing or conservative did not vote against these laws. The greatest disappointment is the absence – and thus the failure to cast any vote against them at all – of Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Law and Justice, and Sławomir Mentzen, leader of Confederation, who, for the purposes of election campaigns, have repeatedly presented themselves as pro-life politicians.

Is all lost?

No, because the legislative process is not over. While positive changes can hardly be expected after the vote in Poland’s Senate, which is dominated by left-wing parties, the laws will not enter into force without the signature of Polish President Karol Nawrocki. The head of state’s earlier declarations indicate that he is opposed to abortion; therefore, in order to be consistent and credible in the eyes of voters, he should refuse to sign the laws. Such a decision can reasonably be expected, although greater doubts are being raised as to which of the options provided for in Article 122 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland he will choose: vetoing the laws or asking the CT to rule on their conformity with the Constitution.

What is certain, however, is that allowing one of the laws to enter into force while blocking the other would be no solution at all – for such speculation is emerging as well. As I mentioned, each of these laws separately, and both of them together, strike at the constitutional order of the Polish state.

In any case, one thing is certain: in the October 20 vote, the right-wing parties failed – the very parties that should have made a special effort to mobilize their members to vote in line with their declared values and the political programs they have adopted. By forfeiting such an important issue as the protection of human life, they will certainly not win the sympathy of the by no means small, truly conservative part of society. The President, on the other hand, may win it again.

Attorney Katarzyna Gęsiak – Director of the Ordo Iuris Center for Medical Law and Bioethics

See also:

Source of cover photo: iStock

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