Polish parliament delays decision on new abortion restrictions {banning abortions for 'foetal abnormalities'}

The Guardian ^ | 16 April 2020 | Shaun Walker

[Cronos]

Poland’s parliament has deferred a final decision on a bill that seeks to tighten the country’s already strict abortion legislation.

The bill would outlaw abortion on the grounds of serious foetal abnormalities, one of a small number of exceptions to a near-total ban on abortion currently in place in the country. It has been sent back to a parliamentary committee for further work.

The proposed new restriction was proposed by an ultra-conservative Catholic group, under a regulation that allows citizen’s initiatives that gain more than 100,000 signatures to be debated.

Parliament, dominated by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, had a choice of rejecting the bill out of hand or fast-tracking it to a second reading, but on Thursday chose the middle-road option. In the past, this has been a way to let legislation quietly die, but it could still resurface.

Previous attempts to impose a total abortion plan in the country had been tentatively supported by parts of PiS, but the government backed down after mass protests. This week, dozens of Polish women have protested in Warsaw despite a strict lockdown currently in place over coronavirus.

President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, said earlier this month that “killing disabled children is simply murder” and promised he would sign the law if it reached him. Rights groups both in Poland and internationally have condemned the legislation and called on parliament to reject it out of hand.

[Cronos]

This was a petition by a mother of a child with Down's syndrome to prevent the murder of such children.

the governing party took the chicken's way out. Instead of banning killing disabled children

[fieldmarshaldj]

"The proposed new restriction was proposed by an ultra-conservative Catholic group"

No bias there. No, sir.

[Hieronymus]

ultra-conservative Catholic group”

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That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

[fieldmarshaldj]

It’s Catholicism actually adhering to Catholicism. It needs no modifier. The modifier is used here as a way to denounce it, to make it sound like something bad. Conversely, they never utilize “ultra-” modifiers on things that are anti-Catholic or extreme (from the left).