Poland's president said he would propose a bill reintroducing the possibility of terminating a pregnancy due to foetal abnormalities, although only limited to "lethal" defects, in a bid to calm mass protests against a near-total ban on abortion.
The Constitutional Court last week outlawed abortions due to foetal defects - ending the most common of the few legal grounds left for abortion in Poland and setting the country further apart from the European mainstream.
After the decision takes goes into effect, women would only be able to terminate a pregnancy legally in the case of rape, incest or a threat to their life or health. Tens of thousands poured onto streets to protest the ruling.
Demonstrations have turned into an outpouring of anger against the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, blaming it and the Roman Catholic Church for the ruling. One opinion poll has shown a steep fall in support for PiS.
President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the ruling nationalists, said he would propose a bill allowing for termination of pregnancy in the most serious cases. PiS has a majority in the lower house of parliament and so it has the power to adopt it.
"When prenatal tests or other medical indications show a high probability that the child will be stillborn or have an incurable disease or defect that will lead to the death of the child inevitably and directly, regardless of the therapeutic measures used," Duda said in a statement outlining the option when abortion would be allowed.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said that wants to proceed quickly to implement amendments to the abortion law.
"The president has proposed a bill that would practically solve dilemmas and doubts that have recently arisen in the public sphere. We're ready to implement this bill as soon as possible" - said Morawiecki.
Left-wing lawmakers said they would reject any compromise on the question of abortion rights.
"This is an attempt to soften the situation for PiS, but no sane person should fall for it," activist and leftist lawmaker Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus told Reuters.
"It is too late now for such proposal. People demand abortion to be legal now," Klementyna Suchanow, one of the organizers of recent protests, told Reuters as tens of thousands were due to protest on Friday evening again.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP