Calay News
Kaja Godek’s foundation announced in December 2022 a “civic project” that seeks to criminalize the dissemination of information about abortion by publicly supporting it or suggesting a woman terminate her pregnancy. The proposal states that acts such as putting up posters with information or telephone stickers could lead to three years in prison and five years in case a woman is convinced to have an abortion when the fetus can live independently of the mother’s body. Kaja Godek is the leader of “Life and Family”, an ultra-conservative organization that pushed for the latest amendment to the Polish abortion law that criminalizes the practice in almost all cases.
The Polish Parliament will debate the bill this Tuesday, which would ban public advocacy of abortion. The ruling Law and Justice Party has announced that it will not support the initiative. Opposition MP Barbara Nowacka called the proposal “absurd” and “incompatible with European laws and European court rulings,” and stressed that it violates freedom of speech and the right to information.
In 2020 and 2021, mass protests were held across Poland against a Constitutional Tribunal ruling that eliminated almost all legal grounds allowing abortion and established prison sentences for those who carried out the practice. Since then, there have been cases of mothers dying in Polish hospitals due to the delay in the abortion operation for fear of legal consequences.
The Law and Justice Party pushed for a change in the parliamentary calendar so that the debate would take place on Tuesday, instead of March 8, International Women’s Day. Law and Justice spokesman Rafal Bochenek said that this is not the right time to deal with issues that generate unnecessary social divisions, as there are more important challenges in international politics and the national economy.
