Poland’s lower house of parliament has approved two bills aimed at loosening a near-total ban on abortions, in what campaigners have described as a “small-scale step” ahead of protests calling on the government to fulfil its promises to overhaul the country’s laws.

The new measures, which are likely to be vetoed by Poland’s nationalist president, would remove some of the criminal penalties for those who help women to access abortion care and allow terminations in cases of foetal abnormalities.

Leah Hoctor, of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said: “These bills represent a very small-scale change. Even if these pieces of legislation are ratified and signed into law by the Polish president – which remains to be seen – they would change very little for most women in Poland who need abortion care.”

This view was echoed by the NGO Legalna Aborcja (Legal Abortion), a reproductive rights and advocacy initiative. “What does this mean for women who need an abortion right now? Nothing, because none of these bills would help them,” said a spokesperson.

The Fundacja Widzialne (Visible Foundation) asked people to keep up the pressure on the government by taking to the streets on Thursday. “Poland still has an inhumane abortion law,” it wrote on social media as it announced rallies in 27 cities. “We demand the full decriminalisation of abortion and access to abortion covered by the National Health Fund!”

The rallies, backed by a range of groups across Poland, mark the sixth anniversary of a 2020 ruling that tightened the country’s already-restrictive abortion rules. The ruling prompted the largest protests in Poland since the fall of communism as people poured into the streets wielding placards that read “The revolution has a uterus” and “My body, my choice”.

The protests were later credited with helping to propel Donald Tusk into power in 2023, with promises to overhaul abortion laws within 100 days. Last year Tusk backtracked on the pledge to legalise abortions until the 12th week of pregnancy, saying there was “simply no majority” to reform the laws.

Even if the two bills passed this week are signed into law, Poland would remain “completely out of step with the rest of its EU peers”, said Hoctor. Currently, abortion is only legal in Poland when a pregnancy results from a criminal act, such as rape or incest, or when it threatens the life or health of the mother.

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The Center for Reproductive Rights instead called on Tusk to skirt around Poland’s polarised politics by putting in place an interim moratorium on the application of all criminal law provisions concerning abortion. “This would ensure that those caring for women no longer do so under the threat of criminal investigation and prosecution,” Hoctor said.

The idea was first floated by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which in 2024 concluded that women in Poland faced severe human rights violations due to restrictive abortion laws.

Hoctor said: “The reality is that thousands of women in Poland every year access abortion care. So they are doing that illegally, or they’re travelling for it. That’s not what a modern European country needs to be. They’re not living up to the promise of what it is to be a modern healthcare system and a modern democracy.”