POLAND's lower house of parliament overthrew a Senate veto yesterday and passed a Bill liberalising abortion, despite opposition from the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II.
Deputies voted by 228 to 195 with 16 abstentions in favour of the Bill, which President Aleksander Kwasniewski has promised to sign promptly into law.
The Vatican, through an article in the semi official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, condemned the passage of the Bill as a "decisive step forward towards the culture of death".
It said Polish legislators had assumed a "very grave responsibility, setting themselves up as arbiters of the life of all those unwanted human beings who, thus, can now be suppressed with the benefit of the law".
Under the legislation women will now be able to end pregnancies before the 12th week it they face financial or personal problems, but only after counselling and three days for reflection.
Under existing law terminations are permitted only if a pregnancy threatens a woman's life or health, results from incest or rape, or when the foetus is hopelessly damaged.
Opinion polls suggest that antiabortion sentiment has been rising and that Poles, about 90 per cent of whom are at least nominally Catholic, are now almost equally divided on the question with a small majority in favour of liberal laws.
The reform, first passed by the lower house in August, was blocked by the Senate this month. Its advocates needed 50 per cent plus one of the votes to overturn the upper house veto.
The church organised a huge campaign of letters and protest against the Bill, culminating in a march on parliament on Wednesday by more than 30,000 people.
The Pope said he was personally pained by the Bill and last month warned his compatriots: "A nation which kills its own children is a nation without a future."
. The Pope has lent his support to the theory of evolution, proclaiming it compatible with Christian faith in a step welcomed by scientists but likely to enrage the religious right.
The Pope's recognition that evolution is "more than just a theory" came in a written message he sent on Wednesday to a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a body of experts that advises the Catholic Church on scientific issues.
"The convergence, neither sought nor provoked, of results of studies undertaken independently from each other constitutes in itself a significant argument in favour of this evolution theory," the Pope said.