Polish leader opposes tighter anti-abortion law

Brussels (Warsaw), Mar 10: President Lech Kaczynski rejected calls to further tighten Poland's anti-abortion law, setting himself on a collision course with a Catholic radio station that helped his party win power.

Support from Radio Maryja helped Kaczynski and his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, steer their conservative Law and Justice party to victory in 2005 elections.

But this week, the station threw its weight behind the far-right League of Polish Families, a junior ruling partner, in its quest for a blanket ban on abortion. This may help the party regain many voters who have defected to support Law and Justice.

President Kaczynski yesterday defended the existing anti-abortion law, which allows terminations only when the pregnancy poses a threat to a woman's life, results from rape or when the foetus is irreparably damaged.

''It is no time for a change. Our compromise is valuable,'' he told a news conference after a European Union summit in Brussels.

''It is no time to return to the situation of the early 1990s.'' He was referring to the period when right-wing parties backed by the Roman Catholic Church defeated left-wing groups over the shape of abortion legislation. Senior church officials back the current abortion arrangements.

Radio Maryja's outspoken chief, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, expressed outrage late on Thursday after President Kaczynski's wife, Maria, signed a declaration in support of the existing abortion law.

The declaration, signed at an International Women's Day meeting attended by prominent Polish women, said: ''We appeal to deputies not to change the constitution because it already sufficiently protects life and human dignity.'' Rydzyk -- whose station is listened to by millions of mostly elderly Poles went on air to express his disgust.

''I am disillusioned with this party (Law and Justice), that it allows such behaviour from such famous people,'' he said.

''I regret that Poland lacks a pro-Polish party. I think Law and Justice could change but it cannot go on like this.'' League of Polish Families leader Roman Giertych, who is education minister, surprised his counterparts from the EU's 27 countries at a meeting last week when he called for a ban on abortion across the bloc and a halt to ''homosexual propaganda''.

After a rebuke from Prime Minister Kaczynski, local news media widely speculated Giertych would resign, stripping the government of its majority in parliament. The two men later said they had patched up their differences.

Reuters