Poland’s government votes to ease abortion laws in challenge to conservative president – POLITICO

WARSAW — Poland's lower chamber of parliament approved two bills that would loosen the country's strict abortion restrictions Tuesday evening, marking a breakthrough for Prime Minister Donald Tusk's coalition nearly three years after it took power, promising to restore reproductive rights.

The measures, which are likely to be vetoed by opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki, would end criminal penalties for helping a woman obtain an abortion and re-legalize terminations involving severe fetal abnormalities, undoing one of the crucial elements of Poland's near-total abortion ban.

“The state trusts women. A woman who terminates her own pregnancy is already exempt from criminal punishment. It's time to stop punishing everyone who loves us, worries about us and respects our choices,” Katarzyna Kotula, Poland’s government equality commissioner and a lawmaker from the Left, said on X.