If Law and Justice deputies were hoping to stall work on the "Yes to IVF" civic bill restoring funding for the procedure from the state budget, they were met with disappointment on Tuesday. It took the Health Committee just over an hour to prepare a report for the Diet. - You will not delay the adoption of this law even for a day," MPs of the parliamentary majority said in the direction of PiS.
Yes to in vitro
Arlukowicz: You will not delay the adoption of this law even one day
Published Nov. 29, 2023 08:29
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And all indications are that the bill will be passed later this week, which is Wednesday. The Sejm will hold its second reading at noon, while another committee meeting is scheduled for later in the day, as Law and Justice announced that the amendments rejected on Tuesday will be submitted as minority motions. With the committee's negative opinion, they will go to the Sejm, where a block of votes is scheduled at the end of the session, which may include a bill on IVF funding.
The Sejm began work on it last week - this was the second first reading (the previous term's Sejm also held one, after which the project went to the Health Committee, which found no time to deal with it, but civic projects are not subject to the principle of discontinuity). During it, the Law and Justice Party announced that it had no club discipline, but also supported referring the project for further work. On Tuesday, when the Sejm was deciding on the Confederation's motion to reject the project in the first reading, the largest group of Law and Justice deputies voted with the proposers in favor of rejection. This position was taken by Przemyslaw Czarnek and Ryszard Terlecki, among others. Law and Justice Chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski was in the "minority" - among the MPs who favored continuing the work. A third large group of PiS deputies abstained.
Tuesday's discussion in the Health Committee and the course of work on the bill itself showed that the parliamentary majority would easily pass the IVF bill without the support of Law and Justice (PiS) deputies (some of the party's politicians declared that if the bill was "worked out," they might support it). A request for a public hearing (it would have been held on December 15) was rejected, and all Law and Justice amendments were rejected, including the one to limit the number of embryos in one IVF procedure to two and that both be implanted to prevent freezing, and the one to allow only married couples to benefit from the program. - Everyone who needs it will benefit," commented KZ Chairman Bartosz Arlukowicz.
