- February 2024Third Way submits bill to restore the fetal defect ground
- July 2024Sejm lacks a majority to pass decriminalization provisions
- 20 OctSejm passes both bills and sends them onward
Two bills pass the Sejm
On Tuesday, 20 October, the Sejm held the second reading of two abortion bills, considered the amendments filed during it in committee, and then voted on both. The Penal Code amendment, which partly decriminalizes abortion performed with the woman's consent and aid in abortion in cases of severe fetal defect, passed 217 to 213, with three abstentions. A separate bill restoring the severe fetal defect ground passed 233 to 203, with one abstention. Earlier in the day, the chamber had also rejected motions to throw out the Penal Code amendment, although the articles give no tally for that vote.
- Penal Code amendment: for
- 217 votes
- Penal Code amendment: against
- 213 votes
- Penal Code amendment: abstained
- 3 votes
- Fetal defect bill: for
- 233 votes
- Fetal defect bill: against
- 203 votes
- Fetal defect bill: abstained
- 1 votes
Data from the article text
What the bills change
The Penal Code amendment would repeal Article 152 §1, under which ending a pregnancy with the woman's consent in breach of the family planning law carries up to three years in prison. It would also repeal §2, which covers helping a pregnant woman end her pregnancy or urging her to do so, and add a new §4. Under that addition, a doctor, nurse or midwife would not commit the offence if the termination follows a medical procedure needed to avert a threat to the pregnant woman's health or life, or if prenatal tests or other medical grounds point to a high probability of severe, irreversible fetal defects or an incurable disease threatening the fetus's life. The restoring bill was filed by Third Way in February 2024 and seeks to reverse the Constitutional Tribunal ruling of 22 October 2020 that found the ground unconstitutional. Under current law, abortion is permitted when the pregnancy threatens the woman's life or health, without an age limit, or when it results from a criminal act, up to the 12th week.
Committee changes
On the same day, the extraordinary committee voted 16 to 7 against motions from the Konfederacja club and the Direct Democracy circle to reject the bills, and it gave a positive opinion to two amendments from Polska 2050. Wioleta Tomczak, a Polska 2050 MP, presented the first amendment, which narrows who qualifies for psychological help by pointing to the definition of a close person in the Patients' Rights Act and the Patient Ombudsman. She stressed that the woman herself chooses that person.
“Respecting the woman's right to privacy, it is the woman herself who can name the person closest to her.”
As Tomczak put it, the second amendment changes how the bill supports a woman after a termination, limiting that support to psychological help for six months from the date of the procedure. The committee vote took place earlier on Tuesday, before the final plenary votes.
Reactions and opposition
The Fundacja Grupa Proelio had warned that the bills were more radical than publicly presented, and more radical than the law in force before 2020, and it called the measure a death sentence.
“This is a death sentence for thousands of unborn children.”
The vote is the second on decriminalization in this Sejm term, following July 2024, when the chamber lacked a majority for the provisions. This time the governing coalition gathered the votes needed to pass both bills.
What comes next
The bills now go to the Senate, and the final decision rests with the president at the end of the legislative process. The outcome in the upper chamber and at the presidential desk remains open. Whether the bills become law depends on those two steps.