Despite an appeal from the Roman Catholic Church, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a law covering the costs of artificial insemination. Duda approved the entry into force of the law, as announced today by the presidency, according to Kathpress. The new center-left coalition approved it in parliament, thus fulfilling one of its main electoral promises.
The president of the episcopal conference, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, asked the head of state to withdraw his signature from the law or submit it to the Constitutional Court. His letter to Duda said that in vitro fertilization was a “human experiment”.
New Tusk government relieved
Prime Minister Donald Tusk's new government reacted with relief to Duda's signature. The coalition would not have had a three-fifths majority in the lower house of parliament to be able to overturn the president's negative vote.
At the end of November, at the request of a successful citizens' initiative, the Sejm (lower house) decided that couples unable to conceive would be reimbursed for the costs of artificial insemination from June 2024. In addition to the centrist coalition, left, 23 members of the right-wing conservative PiS, from whose ranks Duda comes, also voted in favor. The Conference of Bishops has not yet commented on the parliamentary vote.