Polish lawmakers have begun debating reforms to the country’s near-total abortion ban, more than three years after mass protests against the ban rocked Poland. Poland’s liberal new Prime Minister Donald Tusk pledged to bring abortion rights back, but his wide-ranging political coalition remains deeply divided on the issue. This is Dorota Olko of the Left Together party.

Dorota Olko: “Removing the provisions on imprisonment for assisting in abortion from the Penal Code is the first necessary step to the safety of pregnant women in our country. The place of abortion is in the medical textbook, not in the criminal code.”