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Poland’s ruling party delays bill that will protect babies with disabilities from abortion

Poland’s ruling party has delayed the progress of a Bill that will protect unborn babies from discriminatory disability-selective abortion.

Unlike most of Europe, Poland protects unborn babies from abortion in most circumstances. Terminations are only permissible after rape or incest, if the mother’s life is at risk, or in cases of foetal abnormality – including Down’s syndrome.

Yesterday the country’s parliament had a choice of rejecting the bill, sending it to a parliamentary committee or fast-tracking it to a second reading.

177 members of Poland’s Law and Justice Party voted against progressing the Bill to a Second Reading, while only 52 voted in favour.

A vote to completely reject the Bill was defeated with just 187 in favour, 254 against, and 10 abstentions. It means the Bill will now be sent to a parliamentary committee for further work.

In the past, this has been a way to let legislation quietly die.

However, that could be difficult as the proposed legislation comes from a Citizens’ Initiative which received support from over 830,000 Polish residents indicating strong public support for a change in law.

Additionally, polling within the country has revealed there is strong support for pro-life measures in the country. A CBOS poll found that 75% of Polish people think abortion is “always wrong and can never be justified”. Meanwhile, only 7% thought there was “nothing wrong with it and could always be justified”.

However, it is unclear how much support the ruling Law and Justice party will give the Bill despite it being submitted by one of their own MPs, Elzbieta Witek.

Though the bill has strong support from the public, pro-life campaigners are wary that pressure from abortion activist groups pushing back aggressively to keep eugenic disability-selective abortions legal could see the Law and Justice party withdraw their support yet again.

The majority of protests against the Bill have come from international pro-abortion pressure groups.

Amnesty International’s Poland director, Draginja Nadazdin, said in a statement: “We will continue to watch the authorities’ every move to ensure that these regressive bills do not proceed any further when they inevitably resurface.”

In 2016, the Law and Justice party initially supported a similar Citizens’ Initiative but then withdrew its support following such pressure.

A pro-abortion petition against the bill has signatures from 170 MPs, MEPs and senators from 24 European countries. However, only nine of the signatories are lawmakers from Poland.President Andrzej Duda, a Law and Justice Party ally, has indicated he will sign the Bill into law telling Polish publication Niedziela in a recent interview: “I believe that killing children with disabilities is simply murder. If a project opposing this issue will find itself on my desk, I will certainly sign it.”

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Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Dear reader,

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of people like you across the UK, the McArthur assisted suicide Bill in Scotland was defeated in March by 69 votes to 57.

Then, in April, the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill fell in the House of Lords.

Many commentators thought both Bills would become law.

If that had happened, governments in England, Scotland and Wales would now be preparing to roll out assisted suicide services.

Over the coming decades, this would have led to the deaths of many thousands of vulnerable people.

But that is not what happened.

Because supporters like you acted, those Bills were stopped.

Because of you, many vulnerable lives have been saved.

These were two very significant victories. But sadly, they are not the last battles we face this year.

The new Parliamentary session began on Wednesday. We now face three major threats.

  1. Attempts to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill and bypass the House of Lords

    The assisted suicide lobby, led by Dignity in Dying, a multi-million-pound pressure group, has made it clear that it is going to attempt to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill in the next parliamentary session.

    It then plans to use the Parliament Acts to bypass the House of Lords and force the Bill into law.

  2. Labour Government plans for a major expansion of abortion provision, including financial incentives for ‘lunch-hour’ abortions

    Under these plans, the Government would financially incentivise major abortion providers, BPAS and MSI Reproductive Choices, to provide ‘lunch-hour’ or ‘same-day’ abortions.

    ‘Lunch-hour’ abortion services are walk-in abortion services designed to fit into a woman’s lunch hour.

    Women facing an unplanned pregnancy need time, care and support, not a system that gives abortion clinics a financial incentive to rush them through consultations, scans and abortions on the same day.

    If these plans go ahead, many more lives are likely to be ended by abortion here in the UK.

  3. Extreme abortion up to birth proposals in Scotland

    In Scotland, plans are moving forward to introduce an extreme abortion up to birth law. This would go far beyond the abortion law change recently backed by the Lords for England and Wales.

    A review of abortion law in Scotland, commissioned by Humza Yousaf when he was Scottish First Minister, recommended that the Scottish Government scrap the current 24-week time limit – and abortion be available on social grounds, including for sex-selective purposes, right up to birth.

    The final plans are expected to be brought forward as a Government Bill in the new Scottish Parliament, which begins this Thursday.

If these three major threats succeed, thousands of vulnerable lives will be lost.

We cannot allow this to happen.

We can only defeat these three major threats with your help.

We ran our biggest campaigns ever to help defeat the assisted suicide Bills at Westminster and in Scotland.

That work has made a serious dent in our limited resources.

To cover this gap and ensure we can effectively defeat these three major threats in the coming months, we are aiming to raise at least £199,250 by midnight this Sunday (17 May 2026).

We are, therefore, appealing to you to please give as generously as you can.

Every donation, large or small, will make a crucial difference in saving the lives of the unborn and many others. Plus, if you are a UK taxpayer, £1 becomes £1.25 with Gift Aid at no extra cost to you.

By stopping these threats, YOU can save lives during this new Parliamentary session.

Will you donate now to help protect vulnerable lives from these three major threats?

EMERGENCY
APPEAL
to SAVE
lives

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Help stop three major anti-life threats.