Feminist and pro-abortion organizations in Poland have joined forces in a committee called “Legal Abortion. No Compromise” to lobby for decriminalization of abortion, this time by proposing a new bill.
The bill, which has been signed by more than 200,000 people, calls for legal abortion without restrictions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. In case of developmental or genetic abnormalities, it envisages legal abortion up to 24 weeks of gestation. If the pregnancy poses a “threat to the […] mental health […] of the pregnant person,” it would be possible to terminate the pregnancy at any time “after 12 weeks of gestation.” In practice, this means that the child can be killed at any point in pregnancy, all the way until birth, due to the very vague and highly abusive premise of a threat to the mother’s mental health.
However, that’s not all! The bill provides that “[a] minor who is 13 years of age or older shall make the decision to terminate a pregnancy on her own and the written consent of that person shall be required.” In addition, the bill aims to decriminalize abortion – this means removing criminal liability for doctors and third parties for performing abortions or assisting in the procedure.
The “Legal Abortion. No Compromise” committee includes representatives of the Women’s Strike, Federation for Women and Family Planning, Abortion Dream Team, Lodz Girls, Great Coalition for Equality and Choice, Women’s Rights Center, Women on the Web, Democracy Action, as well as the Left, the Greens, and the PPS. It is worth noting that, contrary to what the authors of the project claim, 200,000 signatures of support is not evidence of a change in the attitude of Poles towards the legalization of abortion – the Stop Abortion initiative collected a MILLION signatures within only three months.
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