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Deadline for signatures under proposed anti-abortion laws

PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek 20.11.2017 11:22
Monday is the last day for signatures to be made under the #StopAbortion campaign to restrict Poland's already tough abortion laws.

According to Kaya Godek of the Life and Family Foundation in Warsaw which is collecting signatures for the #StopAbortion campaign, the bill aims to change the law “which allows for abortion because of a prenatally determined disability or illness”.

She said: “Last year, 1,042 children died because of the law” that the #StopAbortion campaign aims to change.

The proposed changes garnered more than half a million signatures. They will need to be verified and, if at least 100,000 of them were made by people eligible to vote in parliamentary elections in Poland, the proposed changes would be put before the lower house.

Polish President Andrzej Duda has said that he would sign the changes into law if they were passed by both houses of parliament.

Duda earlier called termination of damaged foetuses “eugenic abortion” and said that Poland’s existing laws were being abused.

The planned changes have been backed by Prime Minister Beata Szydło, Senate Speaker Stanisław Karczewski and Science Minister Jarosław Gowin.

Poland’s abortion laws have been in place since 1993 and are among the strictest in the European Union.

They allow for pregnancies to be terminated in only three cases: when the life or health of the mother is in danger; when the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape; and when the foetus is severely and untreatably damaged.

tags: abortion
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