Prime Minister Donald Tusser’s government on Wednesday approved a bill to restore access to over-the-counter emergency contraception, reversing restrictions imposed by the previous nationalist government in 2017, Reuters reported. This measure will be the result of commitments made by Donald Tusk.

are protesting in Poland against the law banning abortions after the death of another pregnant womanPhoto: Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP / Profimedia

According to the government, the 2017 legislation significantly restricted access to the “morning-after” pills, which became available over the counter in 2015 after the European Commission decided to allow them to be sold without a prescription.

Poland’s ruling coalition has vowed to reverse some of the policies of the former Law and Justice (PiS) government, including one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion rules, to bring Poland back to European Union democratic standards.

“The topics of today’s meeting were the completion of work on the so-called morning after pill. The matter is completed, the project will be sent to the parliament,” Tusk, a former president of the European Council, told a briefing. .

Tusk said over-the-counter emergency contraception would be available to women over the age of 15, adding that he hoped the law would be supported by parliament and signed by the president.

Tusk added that his party “Civil Coalition” is ready to submit to the parliament “within hours” a bill on the legalization of abortion before the 12th week of pregnancy.

During its rule from 2015 to 2023, PiS, backed by the country’s powerful Catholic Church, also ended state funding for in vitro fertilization (IVF), while a ruling by the country’s supreme court in 2020 led to an almost total ban on abortion. and caused protests.

Actually, the Constitutional Court in Warsaw decided that women can perform abortions only in case of rape, incest or situations that threaten the life of the patient. The court decision excludes cases where the fetus has developmental defects.

In 2021, a 30-year-old woman named Isabella, 22 weeks pregnant, died of septic shock after doctors waited for her baby’s heart to stop beating.

There were other women like her. Last summer, abortion rights advocates in Poland said there were at least five deaths of pregnant women whose families went public, blaming their deaths on abortion restrictions.

Pro-European parties won a majority in the October 15 election, ending PiS’s eight-year rule.