Poland’s Sejm Passes Two Abortion Law Bills

Poland’s Sejm passed two bills on October 20 that would ease parts of the country’s abortion restrictions, including by reducing penalties for some abortion assistance and restoring a ground for abortion in cases of severe fetal abnormalities. Both measures must still pass the Senate and receive President Karol Nawrocki’s signature to become law. The first bill, which would partially decriminalize helping someone obtain an abortion, passed the lower house by 217 votes to 213, with three abstentions. Under current law, people who assist a woman in obtaining an abortion or encourage her to have one can face up to three years in prison. The bill would exempt doctors, nurses and midwives from criminal liability when an abortion follows a medically necessary procedure intended to protect a pregnant woman’s health or life. A second bill passed by 233 votes to 203, with one abstention. It would again allow abortion in cases of severe and irreversible fetal abnormalities or an incurable condition threatening the fetus’s life, reversing the effect of a 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling that removed fetal abnormalities as a legal ground. The measures do not allow abortion on request...