Poland: A Victory Fraught With Threats Against the Fight for Life

Donald Tusk makes the “V” for victory and for good reason: the three opposition parties, the Civic Coalition – led by the former President of the European Council – the Christian Democrats of the Third Way, and the Left, won together 248 of the 460 seats in parliament, compared to 212 for the PiS and the Confederation (far right) combined. This election had a record participation rate of 72.9%.

“Poland won, democracy won, we chased them from power, … this is the end of this bad period, this is the end of the reign of PiS,” declared Donald Tusk from the first results.

On the Catholic hierarchy’s side, it was not easy to wake up the day after the publication of the results of the legislative elections. However, the episcopate, a few days before the elections, had become personally involved in the political battle by having a pastoral letter read from the pulpit urging Polish Catholics to build a “civilization of life.”

Because Donald Tusk immediately announced his agenda during the electoral campaign: if the Poles vote for the coalition he leads, the leader of the opposition will undertake to “immediately” pass legislation for the separation of Church and State, accusing the bishops of having become “supplementary functionaries of power,” and of having contributed to separating the Church from Polish society.

He who was President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019 – and who, for this reason, is a known and esteemed partner of Brussels – also intends to align the societal laws of his country with those of the European Union (EU) in particular on the delicate question of voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) which he wishes to legalize up to twelve weeks of pregnancy.

For the record, Poland is one of the European states where laws in favor of the culture of life are the strongest: in 2020, the country's Constitutional Court declared that a 1993 law authorizing abortion for serious and irreversible disability or an incurable life-threatening illness was unconstitutional.

After the ruling comes into force in 2021, abortion has been possible in Poland for two reasons: when there is a risk to the life of the mother and in cases of rape or incest. The number of legal abortions fell by 90% the following year.

However, the matter is not definitively over. In order to form a coalition government, the KO, the Third Way, and the Left must come to an agreement, which remains probable because their leaders have already declared their good will.

“We will probably wait around twelve hours for the official results…, we will then sit down to discuss and we will certainly reach an agreement,” assured Donald Tusk.

But even at the helm of power, the latter will not have carte blanche. The coalition government, if it sees the light of day, could be faced with frequent conflicts with President Andrzej Duda, an ally of PiS. Knowing that the results coming out of the polls do not give the winners the three-fifths majority required to be able to overturn presidential vetoes of the most progressive bills.