Polish Parliament Rejects Bill Seeking to Ease Strict Abortion Law

Poland’s lower house rejected a bill on Friday that sought to scrap penalties for people who help someone to get an abortion, highlighting deep divisions in the ruling coalition over easing one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.

Under the draft law, people helping to arrange an abortion, for example by providing abortion pills, and doctors performing terminations in the early weeks of pregnancy or due to foetal anomalies would no longer have faced charges.