Poland – In the last days of November, the Polish Sejm decided to proceed with a citizens’ bill meant to have in vitro fertilization procedures paid for by the government. According to the citizens’ bill, the health ministry would have to allocate at least half a billion zlotys each year to finance this kind of procedure.
Konfederacja, an alliance of Christian nationalists and conservative libertarians, had introduced a motion to vote down this citizens’ bill and stop the proceedings on it. However, the new left-liberal majority that has emerged from the October 15 elections has promised it will bring back the state financing of IVF that was suppressed after the United Right coalition led by Law and Justice (PiS) won the elections eight years ago.
Interestingly, not all in PiS voted in favour of Konfederacja’s motion. A group of 56 PiS MPs, including incumbent Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak, and PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński voted against it. In total, only 94 MPs voted in favour of rejecting the citizens’ bill before even proceeding with it, 304 voted against it, and 43, all from PiS, abstained. All MPs of the new majority voted against rejecting the citizen’s bill, and only 76 PiS MPs voted in favor of Konfederacja’s motion.
Since 2016, when PiS put an end to the financing of IVF by the state for ethical reasons, some local governments, mainly big cities ruled by the liberal opposition, have introduced their own financing programs.
For some right-wing commentators, this new split in Jarosław Kaczyński’s party on the issue of in vitro fertilization is in line with top figures from the party, like PM Morawiecki and Kaczyński, now criticizing the group of MPs who had put the issue of abortion performed on handicapped unborn children to the country’s Constitutional Tribunal, blaming the ban on this type of abortion by the court for the party’s election defeat on October 15.
This vote was criticized not only by pro-life campaigners and commentators but also by the Church itself, with, for example, the archbishop of Krakow Marek Jędraszewski saying in a homily pronounced on December 10 that man, created in the image and likeness of God, is called to holiness and love: “In his married and parental life, this love must be reflected and not be replaced by various types of technology. Man is not a product, man is the fruit of conjugal love,” the Archbishop pointed out, stipulating that the Church, while unequivocally criticising IVF, surrounds every life conceived by this method with full respect and love.