Poland: Thousands protest on anniversary of abortion ruling
Six years after a near-total abortion ban, people rallied in more than 20 towns and cities. President Nawrocki is expected to block the reforms.
Symbolic image · Photo: Tadeusz Rudzki / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Thousands of people rallied in more than 20 Polish towns and cities on Thursday for a more liberal abortion law. The protests marked the sixth anniversary of a 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling that banned abortions on grounds of severe foetal abnormalities. In Warsaw, about 1,000 people gathered outside parliament despite the rain, Al Jazeera reported. "Over the last six years, nothing has really changed," said Emilia Niemiec, who manages the AboTak abortion centre.
On Tuesday, the Sejm passed two bills: one would again allow abortions for foetal abnormalities (233 votes to 203), the other would decriminalise helping a woman obtain an abortion (217 to 213). They still need Senate approval, and President Karol Nawrocki is expected to veto them. His chief of staff said the president "supports the protection of life from conception to natural death." Activists called the drafts token gestures. National Health Fund data show 573 hospital abortions in the first half of 2026, compared with 452 in all of 2022.