Government loses abortion vote

Last Friday, the Sejm rejected all five proposed amendments to the Constitution aimed at strengthening Poland's abortion law. "The Constitution could have been changed, but the unsavory political game was decisive," Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński said. "It's a defeat of something I cared about," he added.

The deputies rejected the proposals submitted by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and inspired by President Lech Kaczyński. The motions proposed to grant legal protection for life from the moment of conception. One of the proposals stated that no laws nor international agreements could reduce the protection of life to a lesser extent than the current law. PiS also wanted to expand a Constitutional Article concerning human dignity to include a reference to the belief that human dignity is gained upon conception. The latter motion was the last to be voted on - 269 deputies out of 443 present were in favor of the amendments, well short of the two-thirds required to change the Constitution (296). 121 deputies voted against and 53 abstained.

The Sejm also rejected two proposals by the League of Polish Families (LPR), which alongside the stipulation of inalienable human dignity also proposed protecting life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, which, as the party's leader Roman Giertych explained, protects life both from abortion as well as euthanasia.

The Speaker of the Sejm, Marek Jurek, who is ardently pro-life, submitted his resignation after the proposals were rejected by the Sejm. His resignation is to be voted on during the next session of the Sejm.