POLAND:Poland's ruling coalition was in disarray last night after a failed vote to enshrine the country's restrictive abortion laws in the constitution.
None of five different constitutional motions on abortion received the required two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament, the Sejm.
The chaotic session left the coalition partners openly at odds, while the free parliamentary vote encouraged a revolt within the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
"It is a defeat of something I cared for, it is a great impairment of the protection of life in Poland," said prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Yesterday's vote marked the climax of a discussion that is as much about political power games within the Polish government as it is about abortion.
Deputy prime minister Roman Giertych, leader of the extreme right League of Polish Familes, was concerned that his party was losing its hard-line Catholic supporters to the conservative PiS party of the Kaczynski twins.
To turn things around, he called for a complete right-to-life provision to be inserted into the constitution. That split PiS into pro-life and pro-choice camps and won Mr Giertych back the support of the fundamentalist Radio Maryja and its one million listeners.
Polish law allows women to have an abortion only where there is a proven medical risk to their life or their health. In practice, though, few doctors are prepared to sign a consent form and just 200 "official" abortions are carried out each year.
Many of the same doctors and gynaecologists will perform "unofficial" abortions for €500 a time and at least 80,000 Polish women choose this route every year.
"This is the result of Poland having one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe," said Wanda Nowicka, of the Federation for Women in Warsaw. "Restrictive legislation hasn't stopped abortion, it's simply had a negative effect on women's lives, health and dignity."
The most high profile of these cases is Alicja Tysiac, a 35-year-old mother awarded €25,000 damages by the European Court of Human Rights last month. She was left nearly blind after giving birth because doctors disregarded the clear risks of the pregnancy to her eyesight and refused her an abortion.
The abortion debate is likely to have political aftershocks. Already the leading PiS politician and Sejm speaker Marek Jurek, a pro-lifer, plans to resign.
