In Poland, Catholic organizations are working hard when it comes to fighting against abortion and all forms of the culture of death.
Already, on October 28, 2021, the National Assembly, after having registered a petition which had collected more than 140,000 signatures, debated a “Stop LGBT” bill which aims in particular to ban equality marches as well as “homo-propaganda in the public space.”
A heated debate, since the rapporteur of the project, Krzysztof Kacprzak – president of the Life and Family Foundation – compared the activity of LGBT lobbies to the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s.
A few days later, at the very beginning of November, another citizens’ bill was put on Parliament’s agenda, having collected more than a hundred thousand signatures.
The text to be studied by the Diet (Sjem) – the lower house of Parliament – envisages making abortion punishable by five to twenty-five years in prison, and in some cases even life imprisonment.
The text was supported by Sjem President Elżbieta Witek, who led the initiative towards the first reading which could take place as early as next week. However, it should be noted that it is a legal procedure to allow this first step to all civic initiatives.
Already, on October 22, 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled that aborting a fetus due to a deformity was unconstitutional, effectively making abortion in the country almost illegal.
At the moment, only two exceptions still exist: endangering the health or life of the mother, and whether the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Two exceptions that the new bill clearly intends to repeal.
It should be remembered that, since 2020, the number of legal abortions performed in Poland has fallen to three hundred compared to a thousand each year previously.
But the initiative tabled by Catholic pro-life organizations actually goes much further. The goal is to make an in-depth modification of the penal code, concerning the definition of a child and of a human being: “a child is human from the moment of its conception,” and “he remains a child procreated until the beginning of childbirth” the bill thus stipulates.
It is difficult to say if the text will pass, because the party in power, the PiS – “Law and Justice,” a political group that brings together the national-conservatives – cannot on its own bring a law to fruition without the help of other groups from the right and the center: a support that is not likely to be acquired.
In addition, the PiS deputies are themselves divided on the issue, and the party will not give instructions to vote. On the other hand, it is likely that the text will be sent back to committee to be turned down.
In less than a month, two bills were put on the Polish Parliament’s agenda, at the initiative of Catholic organizations determined to do everything to promote the right to life and oppose progressive ideologies.
